


Perplexities Down Rabbit Holes

by m_peridot



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But It's Going To Be Fine, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Luna Lovegood's Creatures, Master of Death (Harry Potter), Reincarnation, Sharingan, The Curse of Hatred and Other Such Bullshit, Worldbuilding, and all the bs associated with it, because Luna, honestly have no idea where this is going
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2020-04-23 07:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19146331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_peridot/pseuds/m_peridot
Summary: Reincarnation shenanigans and the train station make for an odd existence, but not much has ever fazed Luna Lovegood. Uchiha or not, she remains oblivious to the rule that her clan must fall to the Curse of Hatred. (By doing so, she pushes the downfall of canon down a hill where it gains momentum, rolling faster and faster until the plot lays shattered in the Valley of the End.)





	1. the next great adventure

**Author's Note:**

> So this spawned out of my general dissatisfaction with the small number of fics with Luna as the main character. 
> 
> Enjoy!

The cellar was completely dark, a darkness that tended to suffocate its occupants.

Heavy, labored breathing filled the air. There was a certain wetness with each breath that spoke of sickness left untreated.

“Luna, please, just hold on till we get free…”

A hand found a forehead and flinched from the burning warmth, an antithesis to the cold dampness of stones she was lying on. The fingers traveled down slowly, with a hesitant gentleness till it found the limp hand of the sick girl, which they curled around with a desperate grip.

“It’s okay, Dean… I have people waiting for me… up there.” Her smile was serene and peaceful, though there were none to see it in the darkness. “I’m sorry… for leaving… you and… Mr. Ollivander here. Tell my dad… that I love him… will you?”

The boy felt the tears streaking down his face, landing on the still form of the girl. His hand found the wrist of the girl and felt for the pulse point, the beat of her heart. There was a weary sigh next to him, the old man who had been there longer than the two children feeling the weight of his years and his helplessness. (It should have been him, not the small girl who would now never reach her prime.)

They stayed by her body till life fled from it and flesh turned cold and hardened in the rictus of death.

(It took a day and a half for their captors to realize that one of their hostages was dead. The boy with grey eyes would look on in horror as the woman with black hair and a maniac grin told the house elves to _dispose of the body_. It would fuel his rebellion, begin the turning of his loyalty, and hasten the end of that bloody war.)

So the darkness reached in and took the bright soul of Luna Lovegood away before her time.

*I*I*

Luna smiled as she opened her eyes to the pure white that surrounded her.

How odd. She was at a train station.

There was only one other person there. He was wearing a dark cloak, face hidden by the shadow of the hood.  The shadows shifted, as if he wasn’t completely existent—and perhaps he wasn’t. He seemed feathery, like see-through black silk, cloaked in a tentative reality. He turned as she approached him, and Luna was pierced by a pair of familiar emerald eyes.

She frowned a little. They looked very tired.

“There are nargles spinning around your head, Harry,” she said.

There was a slight hesitation, as if he had trouble connecting the name to his person. “No one’s called me that in a long time.”

He sounded so defeated.

She looked at him closely. The ring on his hand, the cloak around his shoulders, the wand stuck through his belt. The bruises under his eyes and the pale, marble skin. (Remember: stories told near bedtime, true myths that most had forgotten or dismissed. Remember: a boy of destiny, crows converging on his shoulders, and a threat that should have been long since vanquished. Remember: magic passed down through generations.)

“The Hallows,” she said, understanding.

The abrupt change of subject startled a laugh out of him. He leaned against one of the pillars and seemed so light that if he fell he would descend in increments.

“I just want to rest.” This was said so softly Luna almost didn’t catch it.

She came up to him and gently enclosed one of his cold hands in hers. She traced the marble-like flesh in fascination and curiosity, touch feather light and gentle. Peering into the vivid green, she made her decision.

“I’ll take it for you.”

Harry jerked upright, desperate hope tucked away, unable to break free, in his eyes. She smiled brightly at the look.

But then he shook his head, slowly, trembling, want battling against a crushing responsibility.

“I couldn’t do that to you.”

There was a terrible sadness in his eyes, a sadness that was incomprehensible, that had seen the ends of time and the death of a thousand universes. The vivid green was too real, the rest of his body fading to nought against its reality. But her eyes too reflected his in that moment, tied together in that transition place, in the train station outside of time.

“Tell me, did we win the war?”

“Yes.” Harry’s eyes closed, remembering. (He hadn’t tried to remember in too long; it was painful to think too much of a time when he had lived.)

“You saved them.” It wasn’t a question but rather a reminder.

“Not all of them, not enough. I didn’t save _you._ ”

“Harry, you’re not a god. I chose not to be saved.”

He look at her, a frightened child gazing out of those old eyes.

“You may have been the hero, may have had a task, but the villains have been defeated. Heroes deserve happy endings.”

Her eyes curved into crescents, and her lips quirked up in a way that spoke of understanding and love. (Luna had always given her whole heart to those few friends of hers.) She slid the ring off his finger and placed it on her pinky, where it shrunk to fit exactly.

“You have people waiting for you.”

She slipped the cloak off his shoulders, grounding him, making him smaller, more human. It settled on her shoulders, and she flickered between realities before solidifying.

“Let me carry your cosmos.”

Luna took the wand. It lit up in her hand, a brighter, more comforting glow than the sterile atmosphere of the train station. In the warmth of the Elder Wand, Harry looked too vulnerable by himself, too worn, too tired. She gave him a light push toward the train.

“Go be happy.”

Harry suddenly threw his arms around her.

“Thank you,” he mumbled into her shoulder.

Luna hugged him back and then watched as the train pulled away with its sole passenger, a young-old dark haired boy with green, green eyes.

He was laughing.

*I*I*

 _That was <brave> of you _.

The voice sounded without sounding: her mind registered the words, but her ears did not. It sounded stilted, as if it did not know how to use words, language. It said brave, but Luna quite thought that somehow, it didn’t mean that at _all_.

“Bravery is for Gryffindors.” Her voice came out almost sharp, pointed.

_The <Hallows> were never meant to be a <burden>. Their holders were supposed to be <travelers> <jumping> from between <realms>. _

“Harry was tired,” Luna commented in a nonchalant voice, an undercurrent of blame and iron threading the words.

She received the feeling of secondhand guilt and an old regret.  

_He could not <hear> us. But you, you we can <take>. Do you <agree>? _

Luna nodded slowly.

She closed her eyes and let herself be swept away. There was a scent of lily flowers and a too light mist and then nothing.

*I*I*

And she opened her eyes to a world filled with violence and death.

_(the perfect birthplace for a <xxxx>) _

Her new name was Uchiha Tsukiko. She rather liked it; Tsukiko meant child of the moon, and she thought it only natural that it translated to her original name. (She was named for the gods of the night, for those beings that shed light in the deepest darkness; she was named accordingly.) Tsukiko had black wispy hair, but Luna had kept the grey eyes. (She was rather relieved; eyes were the windows into the soul—if she had had different eyes, then would her soul have been blind?)

The Uchiha clan as a whole were rather stuffy; she gave a gummy, cheerful smile to one of her caretakers, but they only replied with a minute easing of the stiff rigidity of their face. She crawled to the edge of the doorway and looked out before she was caught and put back into the center of the room. It took a while to coordinate her limbs and move faster.

A sigh was heard as she began crawling again.

“Tsukiko.”

She tilted her head, looking back at the person trying to balance a snowstorm of paperwork on the low table, while attempting to write a formal document and take care of a two year old all at once. After a moment her eyes were wandering again, peering curiously at the walls and the ceiling. The room itself was rather bare, but clean and nice-smelling.

Luna plopped down and promptly stuck her wispy hair into her mouth. It tasted… sort of sugary. Hmmm.

Spying a fallen piece of metal, she speed crawled over to it. After inspecting it, she bit it. It was hard. She shook it, perhaps it had an invisible nest of Karfnots infesting it?

Oh. It was rather sharp. And pointy.

She gave the poor, lovely hardwood floor a sincere apology.

The sudden sight of feet (they were extremely nice feet) made her look to the blurry mass standing over her. Two hands came and raised her above the floor, lifting her into a warm lap, and she snuggled into the comfort. She felt the exhale, heard the whoosh, but there was no complaint and the arms tightened minutely around her.

They stayed in that position till she fell asleep.


	2. fireflies and ever-shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luna reflects on the oddity of siblings.

_ Luna would always wake before the sun and wait patiently for it to rise. _

She rose when the house was quiet, the shrouded darkness seeping out from corners where the celestial lights could not reach. The wooden floor groaned underneath her feet as she padded out to the veranda. There she sat, small body folding itself smaller, knees bent to her chest and arms around them, and gazed up at the disappearing stars. She breathed, feeling the chill of the night threading through her lungs, and let her mind go till her thoughts were only her senses—the smoothness of the wood, the sting of the air, the warmth of her body. 

(This was her time to  _ remember _ .)

The first gradual lightening of the sky brushed away some of the darkness, and with it the stars. 

She could feel her family inside the house start to stir, almost painfully aware of the rawness of chakra (if magic was a satisfied cat, then chakra was a cold, sharp mountain wind, tearing at her nerves with a fresh vivacity.)

Luna said goodbyes to the moon and to the vanishing stars, and hellos to the now visible clouds and the sun, who said hello back by showering her with golden light. 

She giggled softly, absurdly happy—but what happiness is truly absurd?—and leaned back, against the step, relaxing her curled body and savoring the warmth of the new day.

Her brother approached, silent cat steps. (Already he had learned to vanish his footsteps, those noises inadvertently made; already he was half-ghost, and sometimes Luna needed the solidity of touch to assure herself that he was  _ real _ .) She turned and smiled, and he gave her a small quirk of his lips as he drew closer. She made space for him, and he sat down and watched her as she in turn watched the sun.

Breakfast sound: the hiss of the rice as it steamed, the eggs in the pan, wood against wood as the table was set.

Itachi got up and offered a hand to Luna, which she took, and they went inside to eat.

*I*I*

A scream sounded from inside the room. Then came the muffled groans and the scent of blood.

Luna took out her sketchbook and began to draw.

Pencilstrokes traced the outline of feathers with certainty, caressing the shape of a skylark in flight, and the drawing appeared steadily, details emerging as the pencil moved from wide sweeping lines to lighter precision work. 

She was just putting the final touches on her picture of the skylark in flight when two people appeared in the hallway. ‘Appeared’ denotes that it was a fairly normal entrance, so perhaps ‘exploded’ would be a better word. 

“Come ON, Minato! Mikoto is giving birth, dattebane!”

The man being pulled along by the redhead huffed. “Kushina, I was in the middle of an important meeting…”

“NOTHING is more important than this, especially not a stuffy Council meeting!” The woman stopped dragging the blond man when they came to the door. “The nurse did say room 412, right?”

The blond man nodded slowly and tried not to flinch as another agonized groan came from within. (Suddenly, the door looked a lot more ominous…)

Kushina looked down at the tiny girl in the hallway, coming to an ungainly stop before she accidentally ran over the daughter of her best friend. “Oh, hello, Tsukiko-chan! Are you here for the baby too?”

Luna looked up at the older woman and nodded. She has only seen the excitable woman once or twice, but she reminded her of Ginny, what with the fire hair and all. (Luna decided that red  _ was _ her favorite color and picked up the crimson pencil from the box next to her. She began shading in the plumage—brown really was too plain for such a beautiful bird.)

“Nice drawing, dattebane!” The words were dropped with both the terrifying sincerity of the Uzumaki and the rushed note of Kushina’s excitement. She disappeared inside the room. The scent of blood leaked out in greater quantities and the blond man opted to stay firmly outside the Door of Doom. Looking down at the girl his wife had greeted, Minato crouched down by the child. (Uchiha, that was for certain, though he could not remember ever meeting an Uchiha the grey eyes.)

“Tsukiko-chan, was it? It’s very nice to meet you.”

“You mean it,” Luna observed. She was rather surprised at the earnestness. Most people, she knew from experience, did not mean their greetings. “You’re too nice to be a Hokage.”

He smiled. His smile was really bright. Like a firefly, or sun behind clouds, or lightning in the most frightening of storms. She liked it immensely. (It was the smile of a good man, one who would inspire devotion, one who would  _ change  _ things.)

He sat down next to her, leaning against the wall and crumpling his white and red robes. Luna saw his posture shift, his smile fade—only minutely, as if a stray, dangerous thought had flickered into the subconscious mind. Wrackspurts, Luna decided, never meant any good and were foggy at the best of times. (She thought she might hold a grudge against them for dimming a smile she wanted to keep.) The great chair behind the desk on the top floor of the Administration building wasn’t a very comfortable throne, and Wrackspurts were very common there. They had latched onto Senju Tobirama and Uchiha Madara after all. 

“Minato-san, don’t worry about the secrets or impossible problems.” 

(Because somehow she knew, somehow she could feel the darkness of the highest position in Konoha. Wrackspurts never spawned in light places and tended to avoid clean spaces.)

She wanted the smile back, wanted the sun in all its glory and warmth, instead of the cloudy worry. Luna had seen that sort of worry too much on Harry when faced with a great burden. She didn’t want the man who smiled so brightly to have that expression too.

Minato looked rather startled.

“Can you read me so easily?”

Her lips tilted up. “Minato-san, you have a firefly’s smile. Shadows melt with light, and the sun burns away the haze of mist till we see again. ”

Luna looked down, her grey eyes on the notebook she held as she sketched the outlines of Minato’s smile. 

“Fireflies are stars that have fallen to the ground so that we may hope to reach them someday. Don’t worry—though the shadows will always be there, there are many fireflies too. With that light, you can see the space in front of you; you won’t trip, promise.”

*I*I*

Luna looked over the railing of the hospital bed to peek at her new brother. Dark hair, like all of the Uchiha. She grinned, thinking of Ginny complaining about everyone in her extended family having the same shade of carrot hair. She had told her that she rather liked ginger, and Ginny had blushed. 

(She had never had a younger sibling to take care of. It was rather an odd feeling, this dissonance of  _ Luna  _ and  _ Tsukiko _ .)

“Hello, Sasuke-chan.”

Her grey eyes peered at the closed eyes of the newborn, and Luna wondered what color Sasuke’s soul was. She felt a surge of fondness for the tiny wrinkly thing, and held out a finger, which was immediately latched onto by the small hand. She shook her baby brother’s hand solemnly, a promise and an introduction in the gesture.  _ I’m your sister, Luna. _

The baby and Kaa-san were both tired out from the ordeal, and Sasuke soon feel asleep in Mikoto’s arms while she drowsed, half awake. Luna sat down on a chair next to them, finger still held captive by her younger brother. Her father had already collapsed on the other side of the bed, a medic was tending to his crushed hand. (He was regretting insisting on staying in the room for the entire birth—retired or not, Mikoto had been a jonin and clearly still retained that strength.)

About an hour later, Itachi was released from school so he could greet his younger brother. The birth had been somewhat premature, and when Mikoto had calmly told Fugaku that her water had broken, there was mass panicking all around. Itachi had already left for the Academy, and it was decided that he was better off visiting once Sasuke had been born than to stay for the birth.

“Hello, Ototo.”

Itachi smiled quietly at their younger brother’s eyes opened and sleepily blinked at him. Luna could see the same wonder, the same disbelief in his eyes, as he observed their youngest sibling. (She could see the same promise and introduction in his softening features and his reverence for new member of their family.) It took awhile for him to stop looking at their brother and for him to notice her, but when Itachi finally took his eyes off of Sasuke, he walked around the bed to greet her. 

Two fingers poked her forehead, and she giggled.

“Hello, Kiko-chan. How was your day?”

She held open her notebook and showed him her sketches, both the skylark and the man with the firefly light. Itachi’s fingers lightly traced over the smile that she had captured. (In the background, Sasuke began to cry, loud piercing sobs that had Mikoto hurring to comfort him.)

“You met Hokage-sama.”

“Hai. He had the nicest smile.”

Itachi ran fingertips through her shoulder length hair, making it more frazzled than it already was and dislodging the Ceolins from the strands. Luna leaned into the touch and thought that perhaps she finally understood Ginny’s fierce love of her brothers. She thought that perhaps she finally understood her best friend’s protectiveness and her warmth—this moment felt grounded,  _ she _ felt grounded, by the sensation of fingers trailing through black strands and the hiccups of a newborn that she was already, inexplicably attached to.

“How was your day, Nii-san?”

“Good. I think that I will be able to graduate by the end of this term.” He looked at her seriously. “I want you to take care of Sasuke when I get sent on missions. Can you promise me that?”

“Of course. Don’t be sad all the time and remember to look for fireflies.”

Itachi nodded solemnly. “I’ll try.”

Satisfied, Luna tucked her hand into Itachi’s and turned to watch her little brother. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luna would be a lovely sibling, but I also can't imagine her with any—Luna is an only child, and she always will be to an extent. Anyway, I had fun writing this chapter, so I hope you liked it.


	3. impact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Kyuubi Attack in all its dreadful glory

Luna couldn’t breathe. A vicious chakra smothered her, the biting wind had turned into a hurricane she was unprepared for.  She had been painting on the walls, when the house itself had shuddered, trembling on its foundations. It had startled her, the brush dropping out of her hand and the ink spilling to stain the floor in black. She left the materials there, not noticing, eyes wide, unseeing, immediately seeking out the origin of the terror, though there were only the four walls of her room.

It felt almost like the dementors’ presence, but while the dementors had been cold, this was vicious and burning. She gasped, trying to catch her breath. Distantly, she heard Sasuke crying, and then Itachi comforting him.

She crammed her feet into sandals as she ran outside and beheld the Nine Tails.

The Fox was huge, rising into the heavens as if to brush the stars with its own flames. A crimson, corrosive aura and a snarl that shook her, making her break out in a cold sweat. Its eyes were crazed, taken over, and Luna—

She wanted to curl up into a ball and hide, a bone deep terror seeping through her body, but something inside of her _needed_ to get closer. The Kyuubi was destroying everything, it was _dangerous_ , but she was drawn, her chakra, _no, her magic_ , was caught, pulled, dragged to the demon. So she ran.

No one saw her as she slipped through the gates and out into the burning city. Her chakra cycled through her muscles, aiding unconsciously as she sped up. A burning beam fell too close and she jerked back and doubled around and _she didn’t have time, she needed to reach—_

Desperate, Luna tried to run faster, faster; it was too far away…

(What _it_ was she didn’t know, just a sense of dread greater than the malice of the Nine Tails.)

And then there was a familiar feeling surging through her body, a squeezing feeling, as if she were being turned inside out—

And with a crack, she Apparated.

She arrived on the fringes of a clearing, _where the hurricane was slicing into her skin as she coughed up blood_ , feeling a sense of horrible vertigo—as if she were at the edge of the world and falling into a void of nonexistence. The edges of her magic were shredded by the chakra that surrounded her as she tried to force her magic back down, to lock it within her body, to stop its destructive reaction to a world hostile to it. Her smile was thin and sharp (the irony that the very thing that defined her in another world was ripping her apart in this one), a strained thing as she threw up blood.

She looked up just in time to see Kushina chain the Demon Fox.

Her eyes hurt, she wanted, she _wanted_ —she could see the blood dripping out of the redhead’s mouth—Kushina wouldn’t be able to hold the fox back for much longer.

In that moment, she was driven to her knees by a surge of unwellness. Luna coughed, dry, hacking coughs, and more blood stained the grass. Her magic felt contaminated, her eyes weren’t focusing. She heard Kushina and Minato talking, but the sounds blended together, and she couldn’t make out the words.

Then Minato began to make handseals, flashing through in an act of desperation. He finished, and smoke began to appear behind him.

It solidified into a visage of a man in a cloak.

A man with green eyes.

A man she had last seen four years ago, when she had died for the first time.

She stepped forward, and time slowed, stilled, and green eyes snapped to her small, bloodstained form.

“Harry?”

“... Luna? What are you doing here?”

In a flash, she understood that the train station had not happened yet for him. (Time was odd and never a constant—Harry had spent an eternity and no time at all acting as Shinigami.)

“Chasing nargles. Why are you here?”

Harry grimaced (and yet, his form was less weary than the one she had met when she had died), and he stepped closer to her, till there was only a meter of space between them.

“He summoned me to seal the demon inside of him.” The voice was monotone, dead. This was a responsibility he had never wanted.

“No…” she whispered. She closed her eyes in pain, _not again_. “What’s the price?”

“His soul. I’m sorry Luna.”

For a moment, there had been a hint of pity, a deep sadness, flickering across his face.

She opened her eyes again. They were shining with unshed tears. “Please take care of him, Harry.”

A ghostly hand reached out and brushed against her cheek.

“I will, I promise.”

Time sped back up.

Harry reached his hand through the Hokage and dragged half of the Demon Fox into Minato, sealing it to die with the man who smiled.

The fox shrunk to half its size, and Kushina’s chains loosened, not expecting the sudden change—the Fox roared outrage, and its scream pierced Luna, pierced her mind—Minato arched his back with the pain of the sealing and Luna could only watch horrified as a ritual altar appeared and Minato put a baby, _no_ (Luna’s eyes widened) _his_ baby, on its surface.

But the fox was moving. Toward the child.

“MINATO-SAN!” Luna screamed.

Their movements so fast they blurred past time, Minato and Kushina threw themselves in front of their baby.

The claw of the Kyuubi sliced straight through them and stopped inches away from their child. They were never more beautiful, never more horrific, never more awe-inspiring, than in that moment. It was the height of the climax in the play and the actors were arrayed perfectly (horrifyingly), completing an invisible contract.

Luna rushed towards them, ignoring the pain from the contamination of her magic. Her eyes began to glow red, a lazily spinning black dot in each one of them and she began to weep.

(Chakra began to drain, her unconscious use of it leading dangerously low, her lifeforce seeping out as she burned the scene into her memory.)

Harry watched the proceedings with a heavy heart and inscrutable eyes. (There had been another pair, a long time ago, that had made the same sacrifice for the same reasons. He had never met them, but perhaps…)

She reached them, gasping, her body about to collapse.

“Tsuki-chan? What are you doing here?”

It was Minato, the blood dripping from his lips which twitched up into a light smile despite the scene (and Luna could almost believe that they were in the hospital again), his breathing ragged.

“Minato-san…” she whispered.

He smiled tiredly. “Thank you for your words that day. I don’t think that I ever thanked you.”

Luna smiled back, soft and sad.

Kushina grinned at her and began to tell her son her last instructions. Luna listened, every word branded into her mind, so she could tell the baby when he grew up. (Remember: the child of destiny is forever marked by tragedy.)

“Ano, Tsuki-chan? Could you pass on a message for me?”

She nodded. Blue eyes held steady as the Yondaime struggled to get the words out, as he tried to quell the coughing.

“Tell Kakashi Hatake, the Copy-nin, that it wasn’t his fault and that I thought of him as a son… Tell him that I love him… and to reach out to others. Tell him… not to drown himself, and that the rule book is not always right… and to be careful and to live. Could… you please do that… for me?”

Luna looked up at him with weeping crimson eyes and promised. (She made the oath and would see it completed)

Minato sighed, a release of some sorts, and closed his eyes for a moment before opening them. They were filled with a new sort of determination now.

“Thank you, Uchiha Tsukiko.”

Kushina leaned back, resting her head on his shoulder. Her voice was softer, quieter than Luna had ever heard from the loud, exuberant redhead.

“I’m sorry Minato, I used up all the time we had left.”

He merely smiled and said, “It’s okay… Hello, Naruto. It’s your dad; listen to your motor-mouth mother for me… I love you.”

Kushina look a little desperately to Luna.

“Tsukiko-chan, could you please tell him we loved him?”

She nodded.

Kushina bared her teeth, a sharp, fanged thing of defiance, and hardened her eyes.

“Now.”

Minato brought his arms around Kushina and touched their son’s stomach.

“Eight-Trigram-Seal!”

Luna saw Harry help Minato finish the seal when it wasn’t quite complete and draw the Demon Fox into it. She watched as the black shapes appeared on the baby’s—no, _Naruto’s_ , skin—and she watched as he began to cry. She watched as Minato and Kushina fell when the claw of the Kyuubi disappeared and as the Third Hokage rushed in. She watched as Kushina asked him to protect her baby and as she told the old man her son’s name.

And she saw Harry, looking so _so_ tired yet also bittersweet, take his payment. As he gathered the parents’ souls, he moved past Luna before he disappeared, touching, for a moment, his forehead to hers, comforting in a way only someone who knew her pain better than she herself did could. He gave her a warmth from _home_ , from _her world_.

Luna took a deep shuddering breath, her eyes flickering back to normal. Her chakra levels were almost spent, and she swayed, lightheaded and awfully sad.

It was then that the Third noticed her.

“Child! What are you doing here?”

For a moment, Luna smiled sadly: that was the third time that question had been asked of her that night.

Then she lifted her face.

“There was a Death God.”

She looked up at the stars. Harry had _promised_.

“And a Fox Lord.”

She sighed. The Nine Tails had been deathly terrifying, menacing, in a fatal, too real manifestation of a demon.

“Minato-san became a firefly, and Kushina-san laughed with her last moments.”

There had been a terrible beauty in the scene.

“And then there was an emptiness.”

The Third looked at her with weary eyes.

“What is your name?”

“Uchiha Tsukiko.”

But that wasn’t her name; her name was Luna, and she was named for a goddess.

“How did you come here?”

“I held onto Minato-san.”

The Third thought Hirashin, but Luna knew that it was her magic that had latched onto Minato-san’s soul. That she had felt the Master of Death, and _her friend_ , and wished upon a thousand fireflies.

The Third took her, leaving behind a shadow clone to take his place, before anyone else could wonder at the small, bloodstained child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...would you believe me if I said that Minato and Kushina are some of my favorite characters?  
> Also, wanted to mention that I am so grateful for all your comments and kudos. :) Thanks!


	4. palaces in clouds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luna takes a trip down memory lane.

The heady scent of crushed flowers filled the air—the tremors from the Kyuubi’s thrashing had caused the shop to be thrown into disarray, strewn petals and smashed vases. Water pooled in the cracks and ran red down the street. 

But the structure itself was sound, and that in itself was a blessing. 

The Third opened what was left of the door, a baby in his arms, and a child by his side, and when he expected Inoshi, he found the son instead. (The unleashing of the Kyuubi had crippled Konoha in ways that would be felt for decades. After all, the Will of Fire burns in the best, and so they flicker out in a blaze of glory…)

A man with pale blond hair (and Luna felt a pang in her chest and wondered if the Ngalarics were there to stay now) was standing in the midst of the chaos, a dead look in his eyes, his hands clenched. When the bell rang and the door opened, he turned to greet them, a forced look of learnt pleasantness on his face. 

(He set aside his grief, cleared his mind; there would be time yet for mourning.)

“Lord Third.”

“Yamanaka Inoichi.” The implication was heavy with the rusted scepter of the two words, almost accusing in that day of tragedies. The command was present, weighing time in moments of breath. _Report._  

“My father is dead, you will not find him here.” The voice was monotone, practiced and eerily steady, and a space that was only chaotic.

The only sound in the room was the unsteady dripping from the ruined pottery and the breathing of the infant. The two men stood, a silence born only out of practicality, routine—there was no place for the grief when tragedy had already sunken into their bones.

“Then, Inochi, as the Head of the Yamanaka clan and of T&I, you will do the task… The Fourth is dead, killed while sealing the Fox…”

Inoichi could only look at him blankly. Minato, dead? Because they all had believed him the sun and an immortal. Because he was their hope, their glory, and they had fought for him. It could not be; it defied the order of things, and something had been thrown horribly askew; reality tilted and righted itself, but in compensating for the instability it had lost its core.

(but he had known when the Third came, because there was no other reason that he would carry a newborn, no other reason for the weariness on his face.)

So he listened and obeyed. 

So he breached the mind of a child without complaint, with immediate compliance. 

_Darkness_.

In an instant, he was surrounded by white, a white that seemed too solid, one that enclosed in a suffocating peace— But the emptiness flickered, disappearing, to show a castle of immense proportions. Set on a hill next to the lake, the towers rose above him and stretched to the sky, and the windows were lit, expectant. The structure was built of earth, not graceful, but containing all the power and stability of the mountains—the stone was unpolished, cut without smoothness, and the cliffs fused with the foundation, a seamless whole. It was night, as it was outside in the destruction of the Kyuubi’s attack, and the stars hung too low to the earth, coldly burning.

(He thought, with detached incredulity, that for a child of four, no, for any _normal_ human being, this level of structure in the construction of the mindscape was impossible. There was too much detail, too much _realness_.)

“Hello.” 

He looked to the side and found the girl looking at him with unnerving concentration. 

“Is this your mind?”

She raised her arms and twirled, and her dress lengthened, floated, bleached, as her body did the same, twisting into the visage of a teenage girl. Her hair lightened to a white cloud, and she gazed solemnly at the stars. (Bright Mars and the constellation’s tragedies.)

He raised an eyebrow.

“This is the castle, shinobi-san. Come, or we will be late for the feast.”

He let himself be led away, he let himself forget the horrors of the night, and he did not know why. As a shinobi, he should have completed the mission at all costs, because the Third needed to know what the child had seen, but somehow, this urgency had faded with the dream of a magic castle and the starry night. (It had faded in a delusion of a side-time, of a place only existent in a half tangible way.)

(Inoichi did not want reality. He did not want the violent world with the taste of death on every breeze, he did not want a shattered home or the leadership of a clan.)

So he followed. 

She lead them to a carriage, pulled by the wraiths of horses, opened the door and waited for him. He found himself climbing in, awkwardly, clumsily, grace falling from his form in a world not meant to be open to him. She sat down by him, and suddenly she was wearing black robes and carried a magazine. 

They rode in silence, and the girl read upside down the magazine and smiled. He looked out the window at the great lake and the ripples of creatures that lay beneath and felt a measure of deathly calm steal over him. The ripples retreated past sight, but he continued to sightlessly observe. 

They arrived at the gates, which opened without noise as they disembarked. 

The castle was eerily silent. Their footsteps ghosted, whispering to the castle, which seemed to _breathe_. 

(And perhaps this world too, was living, breathing with every inhale of the form of the child left behind in his reality. Perhaps this world was not a mindscape but itself a reality, this child's reality—and he wondered what she thought of them, this being who was not completely human.)

The corridor opened up in to a cavernous hall. Candles floated, burning with too much intensity and saturating the space with light, and four long tables stood, waiting to be filled, and Inoichi could almost see the imprints of those past who would have stayed in those seats. 

A feast was indeed laid out for them. The gold opulence was uncomfortable, too real—the food seemed to pale in comparison. Inoichi knew then that there would be no breaking of bread; rather a raising of glasses and oblivion.

The child—Tsukiko—Luna—motioned to the stage, where an old, tattered hat sat on a three legged, unsteady stool. 

Somehow Inoichi found himself young; a genin again, bare and vulnerable (without his team). He walked to the centerstage, trembling in anticipation and a hint of dread.

And then the Hat slipped over his eyes.

A thoughtful, judging darkness:

_“Loyalty first and foremost; a given, the obvious—but never let it be said that I Sort by the surface. No, the loyalty is a staple for your culture; what makes_ you _different, Yamanaka Inoichi?”_

He gripped the sides of the chair. Gritting his teeth at the intrusion into his mind, he stopped short of ripping the hat off—he had the oddest feeling that it was a test.

(Somehow Inoichi found himself young again, without the mental conditioning drilled into him by years and experience.)

_“Perceptive, and you’d do well, you’d_ rise _, if you had ambition—but you do not. You have stayed in T &I hidden, the brilliant shinobi, underestimated as only an interrogator. You rival Nara Shikaku in cleverness, save that you work with people and he works with strategy, with game pieces. You know politics, yet keep the status quo, keeping to the shadows except when the peace has been threatened.” _

_I have no interest in revolution; I am [content]._

_“If not ambition, then bravery? intelligence? But again, you prefer not to.”_

_Yes._

_“So we come back to loyalty—which is both the surface and the underneath. Loyalty to Konoha, but if that is the surface… you have no reason to be loyal to Konoha. You are loyal to your teammates. You are not loyal to the Hokage; you are loyal to your friends—you would have risen for your sun, for the_ Kiiroi Senko _; for him you could have been great….”_

His eyes burned. (The despair that had risen up in him when he had turned to the broken door to the flower shop opening flooded him and that longing for the future he had only glimpsed rushed back and coiled in his chest.) _Yes. For him I would have followed into the heavens._

_“And so you pass, Yamanaka Inoichi.”_

And there was a moment of horrifying blankness.

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

The girl smiled, and her eyes were very sad. 

“Inoichi-san, do you believe in fireflies?”

And suddenly they were at a table for two, spinning spinning _spinning._ The wineglasses were half filled, a light dinner, too small a portion to fill any appetite, was set out. He was dressed in a formal dark blue kimono, and she wore white again. The candles descended to the floor and stayed like so many stars, lightening the pressing darkness.

They talked, and maybe it was only an hour, or perhaps a year, and if you asked Yamanaka Inoichi, he would not be able to tell you of what they spoke.

(but his heart had lightened, and he could lift his head to meet the grey eyes of the impossible girl on the other side.)

By the time the candles burned to stubs, an indeterminate amount of moments, he had seen the memory of that terrible sealing and Minato’s last words and gained access to a S-ranked secret. He had seen the Shinigami and knew that their Death God was tired and weary, bound by laws that he could not control.

And he realized that he could not tell the Third. Because this child was not a child of _this_ world. Because she was perhaps more than human. Because he wasn’t loyal to (he didn’t trust) Sarutobi Hiruzen, who was not his Hokage, not the one he would have given everything for…

And because she reminded him too much of Minato’s brightness.

* * *

  _addendum: belief and the generation of faith_

* * *

Namikaze Minato had always inspired absolute devotion in those who knew him.

It went deeper than love, a willingness to go out in a blaze of glory for the chance to stand with him, to be bright enough for him. 

And Yamanaka Inoichi found himself on his knees, bowing, accepting the hand that said _“Work with me, for we will be change. We will be the generation of revolutions.”_  

They were young then, and Minato had taken the fire cloak and the Hokage’s seat and with him brought the other chan heirs and heads of his time to the front. The Ino-Shika-Cho trio, the Hyuuga twins, the Uchiha couple, the trackers of the Inuzuka and Aburame. They had come through the war triumphant and soul weary; high on adrenaline but with a grimness of war hanging in their shadows. 

Inoichi had never wanted to play the games of the powerful. He was not content, (not _really),_ but the acceptance had driven into his bones and defined him. He had meant to fade; the darkness of T&I was often forgotten, like ANBU, and he had never dared to long until Minato.

Because Minato wore his belief like the blinding sun, he called to them all, and they had answered. Shikaku had lifted his head, never once complaining, and his eyes had intent burning in them; Chouza had donned his armor, had become faster, stronger, fighting for him—and that was when Inoichi had been lost to the bright smile and the crystal eyes. 

(This was not a romantic love, nor the love of brothers, this was a burning need of loyalty and trust. This was hope and expectation. This was belief in a god, this was _faith_.)

And he found himself rising, using his words as weapons, his perception as a senbon—and he found himself in the Hokage’s inner circle, his teammates by his side, swearing fealty. He found himself clearing the way with compromises and bribes and whispered promises for the changes that were to come. Because no one played politics as well as he did and because Minato _needed him_.

It was a generation that would have made the world quake—indeed they had already started—

But then Namikaze Minato _died_.

He died a hero’s death, but Konoha did not need heroes, _Konoha needed a living god_.

And so their circle broke, and they looked at each other and wondered with a despair, because where was their light now?

Some left in disgust—Uchiha Fugaku, in angered grief, secluded himself, driven further by the village’s suspicions. 

Some left in a quiet atheism—Hyuuga Hiashi saw Kumo take his twin and wondered when he had ever believed. 

Shikaku stayed, out of duty and obligation—he had been, and _continued to be_ , the Hokage’s closest advisor, but it was no longer _his Hokage_ and the always-apathy returned to his eyes.

And Inoichi?

Inoichi let himself fade.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> checklist:
> 
> 1\. unreliable narrator
> 
> 2\. a good dose of Luna strangeness
> 
> 3\. Hogwarts/mind palaces
> 
> 4\. the absence of a good beta reader
> 
> 5\. a headcannon of Minato's generation


	5. trust and deceptions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yamanaka Inoichi decides to lie, Uchiha Mikoto feels to empty to be human, and the village deals (or does not deal) with the aftermath.

_Darkness_.

Inoichi found himself waking from the strange dream in increments. The emptiness of the blank mind slowly crept up, consuming the scene, and there was a moment of oblivion. He could not remember how the conversation, which already seemed the faded memory, came to be the present. There was an odd sense of disjointment, a lack of transition between the two. 

He met Sarutobi's sharp eyes and suddenly had the sense that he was looking across a yawning chasm, as if he had used the shintenshin on himself and was now seeing through a stranger's body. 

"Report."

"The subject was disoriented by the malevolent chakra and ran out of the Uchiha Compound in panic. I believe she was trying to find her father.”

And he found himself weaving the story from what _would have_ happened, from the child’s own thoughts and feelings, and save for the _otherness_ he could have almost believed the words coming out of his mouth.

“She got lost and wasn’t thinking. The subject ended up on a street on the south side—near the destruction and was in shock in the middle of the burning street when the Hokage saved her. He used the Hiraishin to teleport to the Kyuubi and Kushina and then to the clearing. When they arrived, the Hokage pushed the subject away from the clearing as he performed the Death God seal and sacrificed his life to save the Village.”

His voice was blank, professional. He was reporting to his superior—telling him the absolute truth, for anything less would not be tolerated. (He was deceiving his superior—telling him a lie to hide reality, for anything less would not be tolerated.)

“She has no ill-intent towards Konoha?”

A question of wartime, for they were at war.

(Vulnerable—surely, the spies had already reported back: _Kyuubi unleashed, shinobi force decimated._ )

“No. The subject was in a state of shock from the beginning and is currently still in shock. I doubt that she will understand or remember most of the last few hours.”

(She would remember the last few hours with the utmost clarity.)

(The curse of _those_ eyes.)

The Third nodded sharply. “Good.”

Inoichi watched dully as Sarutobi Hiruzen created a kage bunshin to take the girl, his real self carrying the baby, and shunshinned out of the broken flower shop in silence.

Then the many masks dropped and he dropped into a chair, hands covering his face as he finally let his tears fall—for his father, for _his Hokage_ and the child he left behind, for a little girl with cloudy eyes. 

*I*I*

The destruction has ceased, and now there was only an eerie silence. Sarutobi’s clones had alerted the safehouses the terrible news that it was over and the cost of that peace, and most had found their way back to their homes, taking in the desolation with grimness (for this was a shinobi village) and counting the missing. The Uchiha Compound had largely avoided the Kyuubi’s rampage, but the grave solemnity had permeated all of Konoha. The Compound was quiet, dazed, still reeling from the impact of the abomination that had been unleashed that night.

Mikoto opened the door, her face harried and weary, and looked without recognition at the Third. Slowly her eyes traveled down to her child, unconscious in the Third’s arms. 

“… Lord Third.”

He silently handed her her daughter, who began to stir in her arms. A dull relief seeped through her, but she couldn’t feel the flood of emotion that she _knew_ she should feel, as a mother, as a _human_. It was as if the corrosive chakra of the Fox had eaten away her core, replacing it with a bitter resignation. (How many had died? How many faces would disappear, only remembered through memory? And Mikoto knew the importance of memory—how could she not? As a bearer of the Sharingan, she knew that sometimes the illusions of the past seemed too real, too easy to get lost in. It was a malicious comfort—the pain overwhelmed and left only emptiness without proper sorrow or closure.)

“She was found wandering.”

His eyes were accusing and Mikoto shuddered deep inside—the Third had inherited his sensei’s distrust of the Uchiha, and while he put on the grandfather _facade_ , she knew better than to ever trust it.

 _Everybody lies_.

(The Third disgusted her. He was too cowardly to acknowledge his own shortcomings and left the dirty work to Danzo. He would never admit to his own discrimination against the Uchiha, but it lay there, ignored and festering. But he was her superior, so she bent her head, so she kept quiet; there was never _proof_ and what could she accuse the venerated Hokage of? She had hoped with Minato—but no. What use was there in hoping in a dead man? Kushina, dear Kushina—)

(In a week, Mikoto would demand custody of Kushina’s child and be coolly denied. Hurt and _furious_ she would see the bright child, _Kushina’s_ child, become a pariah. Whenever she would attempt to approach the blond, blue-eyed boy, she would be redirected, sometimes forcibly, by hidden ANBU. So she too would nurse a bitter resentment, so she too would watch, distant, as the Uchiha _seethed_.)

Tsukiko opened her grey eyes, and Mikoto was struck with the thought those eyes not of the Uchiha. Their shape, the curiosity was all wrong.

_What an awful thought to have of her own child._

“Thank you, Lord Third.” Her voice did not tremble, though she wished that this day were wiped from existence.

The Third put his hands together in a seal and dispelled, leaving behind acrid smoke and a lingering mistrust.

Mikoto gently put her child down, and once she was sure of Tsukiko’s steadiness, she sent her to bed. Because she could not be a mother, not that night, not when her best friend lay dead to the Fox, not when her Hokage had perished, not when she was fighting the urge to break.

So she poured herself a glass of wine and drank to the dead.

*I*I*

“Nii-chan…”

A pair of hands, already too calloused (too small to be so scarred), tugged her onto the bed, and there was warmth. 

(The darkness, Luna thought, had lost its comfort and familiarity. Now it was only cold and desperate, filled with the silent echoes of the dead, the destruction. Éadóchas swarmed in darkness, she remembered with a start, and Luna could almost feel the outlines of the frozen scaled against her back. She clutched at the warmth, pulling herself closer to her brother. It had been a momentous day, but the dreaded happenings had faded and now there was only a deep and abiding sorrow.)

“Minato-san, he—”

A sob and ugly, muffled crying.

( _do you believe in fireflies?_ )

“I know, Imouto, I know.”

A voice of quiet despair.

*I*I*

The days after the Kyuubi attack were hell.

Public outrage and grief drove the secret and subsequent taboo out of the Third, who looked much too weary to be leading a Hidden Village. Distraught civilians and shinobi called for blood, for retribution—for there not to be a concrete representation which they could blame, could fight against, was _wrong_. (Before there had always been an enemy— Iwa, Kumo, the shinobi across the field, their opponents—there was someone to blame, there was a way to overcome, to deal retribution. But now, the Third had said the Kyuubi defeated, but there was no victory, there was no satisfaction or peace. After all, what was the Kyuubi but caged?)

So they turned against the jinchuuriki and the Uchiha.

(The infighting within the Council on the subject of the jinchuuriki’s lodging and training led to a complete stalemate, and so the “weapon” or “hero” was shoved into an apartment with a permanent ANBU guard. Neither party were happy, but there were more _pressing_ things than the status of the Fox and its container. The Kyuubi had been neutralized; other threats to Konoha’s stability had not been.)

A week after the Attack, the Fourth’s funeral and a memorial for all those who had fallen was held in the center of Konoha. The village went into mourning and the scent of despair hung like the Sword of Damocles above the Leaf.

Iwa celebrated, a vindictive glee. 

Suna, Kiri and Kumo watched like hawks, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. 

Kusa filled with grim satisfaction.

(But throughout the shinobi villages was sense of profound emptiness—for the Fourth had been brilliant, addicting to watch and perpetually drawing attention. The hollow left by him was huge; there was a sense of foiled anticipation, of a scrutiny that had not borne fruit, of a blinding future that could-have-been.)

* * *

_addendum: the problem of_ _catastrophe (an analysis on Uchiha Mikoto)_

* * *

The problem with catastrophe is thus: it delivers a shock to the system. Not the helpful kind of shock, like a defibrillator, but more like a stroke or an electric chair. Konoha after the Kyuubi Attack was barely functioning. That lead to too many injustices and general lack of faith in the system. Justified lack of faith, but one that was devastating nevertheless.

The most prominent injustice, besides the Naruto situation, which was plain _stupidity,_ is the Uchiha and how they are given the blame for the Attack.

The lack of cohesion between the village and the clan bothers me. A lot. There were faults on both sides, of course, and in canon I believe that Madara/Obito is hinted to be behind much of the aggression, but damn. The first thing an Academy student learns is patriotism. For the Uchiha to take such an extreme step... 

But this is not an analysis on the Clan and the reasons for the coup. It  _is_ however, an analysis on Uchiha Mikoto.

First and foremost, the thing that bothers me about Uchiha Mikoto was that she wasn’t given Naruto after Kushina died (if not outright given, at least she should have had contact with him). They were _best friends_ —she wouldn’t have just ignored him. (Couldn’t have just ignored him—Naruto was the pariah, the prankster, was loud and obnoxious and _there.)_

Of course, we could take the boring route and assume that Mikoto was like the rest of the village, and couldn’t look at Naruto without seeing the Fox—doubly painful for her because the Fox is what killed Kushina—but this doesn’t make sense on a few levels.

One, I highly doubt that Mikoto didn’t know about the jinchuuriki status that Kushina held, or even if she didn’t, _Kushina was an expert on seals_ . Screw Minato—Kushina, if she wasn’t already proficient in seals, would have studied like hell after her village burned and her people were massacred. You _cannot_ tell me that a child who had had her village destroyed wouldn’t want to preserve every bit of its legacy. So either way, Mikoto knows a fair bit about seals. She _knows_ that when the Third says “container” he _means it._ She probably also heard of B of Kumogakure during the war—I know Minato fought him. And B is an example of a well-adjusted jinchuuriki, one with a good seal, and if Mikoto didn’t believe that Minato and Kushina would use the safest seal on their newborn, then she really _didn’t know them_.

Two, Mikoto is described as a “very gentle and kind woman” and “a very good mother” (taken from Narutopedia). How exactly does someone with those traits _hate a little boy_ ? Especially _a little boy who was the son of her best_ (or if not best, then at least _very good_ ) _friend?_ Yeah, no. I refuse to believe that a character with those personality traits would outright ignore an abused child (the villagers aren’t exactly subtle—there’s no way that she missed the malice that they held towards Naruto).

Three, from how she speaks about Uchiha Fugaku she very much understands responsibility and power (or rather “understood the importance of his position as the Uchiha clan leader and was a dutiful and loyal wife to him”). So she probably understands Minato’s decision and would have wanted to uphold his wish that his son be thought of as a hero.

That brings me to several conclusions.

Either Mikoto, after the Kyuubi attack, stayed holed up in the clan compound, never going out because of the villager’s suspicions, and therefore _didn’t know about Naruto_ , and thought that Kushina’s child had perished in the attack… 

Or she was prevented from initiating contact.

I know that politically, it would probably be a horrendously bad move to give the jinchuuriki to the Uchiha, who were already under suspicion. (It would either make the suspicion and fear _worse_ , or the Council would vehemently protest the move. There is the other thought that maybe putting Naruto with the Uchihas would be seen as a sign of trust—it honestly depends on how they’d spin it. But you know that with Danzo, who was _taught by the Second,_ who _hated_ the Uchiha, the chance of that plan screwing up would unfortunately be _high_.) But honestly, what stopped Mikoto from inviting Naruto in to have a meal or from defending him or otherwise becoming a good semi-parental influence on him? I can only conclude that someone higher up stopped her.

(Of course, I’m filling in plot holes now; honestly, for a shinobi village, the higher ups are stupid. They handle the jinchuuriki with bad planning and don’t really give him any ties to the village. If Naruto had had any other personality, I honestly think he would have ended up on the Gaara end of the spectrum. Just without the voices.)

(Also the chance that Mikoto didn’t know Naruto’s parentage is absurdly low. She knew Kushina was pregnant—they talked about their children being friends—and knew that Kushina and Minato were married. And Naruto bear a _really_ uncanny resemblance to Minato…) 

Other, more crackish, out there thoughts are that Mikoto had any memories of Kushina having a child erased—or maybe her whole relationship with Kushina—by the Yamanaka. Or she had memory loss during the Kyuubi attack. Or that she was put under a genjutsu. Or maybe she suppressed all thoughts about Kushina because it was too painful, or she was in denial. 

Perhaps she was replaced with an alien or a robot that fulfilled the place of good mother. Perhaps she was died during the Kyuubi attack and Sasuke’s memories of her are delusions. 

(Feel free to take any of these [rather absurd] ideas as your own if you want to write them.)

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter was hard. The Kyuubi Attack was extremely difficult to envision because I had no point of reference. In some ways it was like a terrorist attack—it happened on home soil and was so terribly unexpected and destructive that it left people completely in shock and reaching for protections and changes to ensure that that never happened again. But this attack wasn’t only a day of widespread destruction—it also killed a prominent figure, the beacon and leader of the village. I tried to draw from the Kennedy assassination, especially Robert Kennedy, and I realized that not only was hope taken from Konoha, leaving behind cynicism and hardness, but there was also nothing that could be done. Unlike the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in the USA, there was no concrete enemy, no perpetrator. The cause hadn’t even been killed—just sealed—and the environment must have been festering. 
> 
> Remember also that Uchiha Mikoto is an unreliable narrator, who just went through this completely devastating event. While this does not mean that she is completely wrong, it means that you should be aware of bias in her telling of the story and the environment that caused it.
> 
> Please keep in mind that the characters' thoughts and actions do not necessarily reflect my own.


	6. after the impact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dust clears but nothing is resolved.

The days following the Attack were bleak.

There was no sense of completeness—it was a devastation that had not ended definitively, a devastation that continued in every aspect of life in the Village.

(There were still bodies that, strewn through the collapsed building and the wrecked streets, were stumbled upon and retrieved with a grim sense of hopelessness—for there would be another and another and _another_. Rows and rows of dust-caked corpses near the Village gate, some which would not be claimed until weeks later. And months later there were still the missing, whom everyone knew had passed, but who had disappeared without resolution, without the concreteness of the visual.)

The Third took power quietly, but not without contention—when Konoha needed a leader, a _unifier,_ instead they received nothing but complications and confusion. Nara Shikaku, Jonin Commander, found himself directing the efforts of the shinobi, immediately cancelling all missions and recalling the shinobi he could. He put Konoha in lockdown, stationed chuunin at the gates to refuse all who were coming, put genin into groups to help the rescue and clean up. The south and east sides were hit the hardest: a third of the civilian sector and many of the smaller clan compounds as well as the Akimichi, the Hyuuga, and the Yamanaka were affected badly.

(But Nara Skikaku was not Hokage and only had control over the shinobi force, and then only nominally over the jonin. Yuuhi Shinku had been killed after securing the genin, chuunin, and other shinobi under the age of sixteen and had left a power gap—the position of Instructor died with him—and the training and organization of the genin and chuunin forces after the Attack remained largely unsecured. The ANBU commander had also been killed, leaving the Black Ops acting alone—fragmented, each squad making their own decisions. ANBU was their own entity, and without the command of the Hokage or the ANBU commander, they withdrew into themselves.)

The hospital, at least, was not hit, but instead they were flooded with the injured and the dying. Overworked and overwhelmed, many who could have survived died, and medic after medic fell to chakra exhaustion and burnout. (Konoha needed Tsunade, needed her brilliance and unrelenting force, but she was herself drowning.)

The riots surrounding the containment of the Kyuubi fed into the desolation, fed into the political infighting, fed into the power struggles and the quiet reactivation of the Foundation (for Konoha’s security and safety) (they had lost too many shinobi, and already the probes and small scuffles near the border proved that the other villages were seeking weakness).

There was widespread disorder and civil disturbance—scavenging for supplies crossed private property and there was no sense of ownership, especially were the destruction was most devastating. Reports, oft misfounded, of the Military Police seizing control and hindering relief efforts as well as the widespread rumors that the Uchiha had something to do with the Attack (eyewitness reports of the reflection of the Sharingan in the Fox’s eyes) led to distrust of the Uchiha and the Police and impeded order and clean up. The Military Police overstepped, in many ways, its intended function as set out by the Nidaime—to quell disorder among civilians and to investigate crime—and in the days and weeks following the Attack, they organized and helped with the rescue and clean up. However, this help, due to the rumors and intact Clan Compound, was often regarded with resentment and suspicion and sometimes rejected. 

Konoha never regained the sense of unity that they had tasted with the reign of the Fourth. 

(Konoha splintered: Danzo's factions, the clan divisions, the Sandaime, the Daimyo and his economic support, they all fractured Konoha, fractured the Will of Fire.)

It was only a month after the Attack that the funeral and memorial for the Fourth and those killed in the Attack was finally held. It was this delay, perhaps more than anything, which showed, clearly and publicly, the disorganization and lack of coordination within the Village hierarchy.

The names of the dead, then the missing were read, and those killed in action were carved onto the Memorial Stone. The Third spoke of sacrifice and reconstruction, but age was in his every movement, and they could tell how the Attack had wearied him. 

Luna stood with her brother and wondered with concern when the Heliopaths had begun gathering and whom they belonged to. (Fudge had had an army of these once upon a time, and that had been concerning as well) She looked to her side and, judging from the barely discernible furrow in her brother's brow, he was also quite worried about the fiery hoofbeats. 

She took his hand in her own silently, no tears left to spill—they had dried a month ago, leaving only the quiet sorrow of those left behind. 

And then the words ( _taboo, S-Ranked Secret, a baby and a sacrifice, resentment, hero_ ) broke through the monotonous weariness of the Hokage and Luna found herself on high alert. _This was important_ , and the child would be lonely. ( _Are not all fated children destined to be such?_ ) But she had made a promise, and her loyalty was never truly bound to Konoha, to this world and this universe. ( _She knew that someday, she would meet the firefly. That day was not now, but it was coming._ )

So Luna clutched her brother's hand as the needle _(how many had it been?)_ was threaded through her mother's heart and felt a dread that left her more unsteady than the _redmaliciousAnGRy_ chakra of the Fox. 

Later she found herself in the flower shop, picking up a white camelia, and meeting the eyes of Yamanaka Inoichi. 

"Who are you waiting for, Torekka-shi?"

She hummed, bemused. 

"For the Lady Time."

(Inoichi was silent, because weren't they all?)

*I*I*

Perhaps they were all breaking once again.

There were certain things that defined the world. Hashirama’s dream, the dividing of the bijuu, the rise and death of the Nidaime—and Genma thought that for his generation Namakaze Minato’s death would become that catastrophe that dogged their every footstep, every kill, every quiet moment. 

Asuma might actually leave this time—with his father back in the seat of the Hokage, there was every chance that he would take the invitation to the Shugonin Junishi. He didn’t blame him; Genma almost wished he had the chance to do the same. Instead, like Hatake Kakashi (and everyone could that he was all but dead already—running only on that desperate grasp of a loyalty never repaid), he had thrown himself into ANBU. 

(What did it say that the only times he smiled these days were on infiltration missions?)

He slammed his glass on the table, threw his head back and laughed, playing the drunkard. The man across from him (target. affiliated with Kiri. posing as a merchant, trader, _civilian_.) grinned.

“And even worse, that business with Konoha! They wouldn’t even let me through, and I’d even hired their own shinobi!”

(he was _good_. not as good as he was though.)

“Right? That rumor about a demon, as if anyone’d believe that!”

(the target’s eyes sharpened.) 

Later, as the body trembled and convulsed, Genma searched his belongings, found the half finished letter, the cipher that Intelligence had figured out, and with the list of contacts his target had given up under the hallucinogenic. 

(good. he wasn’t sure if he was ready to go back to Konoha yet.)

*I*I*

Luna knew that she had to find Hatake Kakashi in the same way that she knew Nargles infested mistletoe.

That said, she hadn’t a clue as to where he might be.

(The Uchiha did not care for Hatake Kakashi—he had their kinsman’s eye under his headband, and dying wish or not, they had zealously guarded their dojutsu since the Warring Clans Era.)

But perhaps it was fate, perhaps a kind of _“wyrd”_ (as her first father would have called it), that she, in all her wanderings, happened upon a tree and the Dog, a half a year after the Attack. (It was a cloudy day, and Luna was glad, glad that the blue of the sky did not match a dead man’s eyes or a that of a lost infant, glad that she would not feel a clenching in her heart when she glimpsed sapphire…)

She had scented iron and thought it odd that trees bled, before she had looked up and seen a wounded figure on a tree branch. She climbed up (it took awhile, for the tree was very tall—taller than any tree that she had ever seen in her first world—it spanned five stories with a trunk as big as the Knight Bus) because she was curious of such a person, curious of something undefinable… (Her magic curled around her, a kitten looking for a heat source, and purred. She was warmed, though the spring rains had not ceased and the wind still drew tentative icy circles on her skin.)

“Hello.”

The figure startled, and then a weak attempt to evade. She inched closer, as to a stray cat, but when she saw him clearer, she thought him a dog who had lost his owner…

Luna traced the cracked mask, the red and black lines, as one eye looked wary and tired, roving over her face, memorising and categorizing. The other was hidden under a scar and a too-deep sadness. A shock of silver hair escaped the hood, shredded as it was, and the body molded itself into the tree’s shadows.

“Who are you?” (and oh, Luna thought that it was the worst infestation of Croiacks that she’d ever heard.) An involuntary groan dripped out of the corner of the painted black lines.

“Luna.” 

“Rhuna?”

The word sat uneasily on his tongue, stumbled and tripped over the lips, and Luna thought it strange, her now reality. (She was named for the moon, but it was a different moon, and this world’s moonlight lingered oddly heavy on her shoulders.)

“Shinobi-san, you have an infestation of Croiacks.”

The masked shifted a bit, porcelain crumbling. “Is it dangerous?”

(Such an absent-minded tone, as if the speaker did not care about the answer. It reminded Luna of a cloud-white and not-quite-there friends who were too tired. It reminded Luna of a rushing, roaring noise, of a deafening whistle and jade green, of skeletal hands and apologies. She wondered where they were now, when they were now, with whom they were with… She hoped happiness and reached a tendril of magic to touch the red strands that had tangled around her neck.)

“Runa?” Aah. There were Wrackspurts circling her mind again… she shook her head to dislodge them. The masked Dog had asked a question.

“Yes, but only to the heart.”

“Maa, that’s alright then.” Breaths came in shallow pants through the mask, and Luna trailed fingertips around the crimson. It began to rain; the sky growing ever darker, the branches of the Hashirama trees becoming slippery with pink-tinged drops— 

Lightning shocked the scene—took a snapshot of startled faces—glanced off the branch above them, shattering into a million sparks—there must have been a tremendous noise, but oddly enough, Luna couldn’t hear anything but a numbing silence.

And she was falling.

* * *

_addendum: the entity called Death_

* * *

Namikaze Minato woke up to a softer white than the sterile of the hospital and instantly knew he was dead. (Minato had always been too rational, to the point that on the battlefield he was always in absolute control. They may have called him _Kiiroi Senko_ , but they ever first described his cold crystal eyes. They were the eyes of a machine, the eyes of a god damning the killing ground and all in it to hell.)

He sat up slowly, looked down and saw, as if he were distanced, the gaping crimson in the middle of his stomach. There was no pain, just a tinge of numbness, of an anesthetic. 

He was in a hall with an arched roof and two strange rods of iron running through the middle of the floor, extending out into both an unknown vastness that was somehow both dark and inexplicably light. Somehow he felt drawn to the edge of the marble, to the verge of that path—

Minato wrenched his gaze away with a frown. While he didn’t feel any ill intent from the urge, he felt disquieted—there had been no genjutsu placed on him, no surge of chakra…

It was then that he noticed the entity who was not truly there. (Perhaps if he looked closely enough, matter would flicker, like a genjutsu only half applied…)

“Not many people actually notice me. I can see why Luna liked you…”

Minato’s stance was still open, still relaxed, but his eyes began to frost. “Who are you?”

The being flickered—truly flickered, not shunshin nor hiraishin, but simply a partial dematerialization, and they appeared only a meter from the Fourth. To his surprise, the not-there _thing_ was shorter than he was (not that it made them any less imposing; there was something odd, not _quite_ there, about those vivid green eyes. They scrutinized him, looking into his soul, desperately searching for _something_.) 

“Shinigami, I suppose you’d call me. I was the one called when you summoned the Death God to seal the Kyuubi.”

And suddenly, Minato could see the skeleton, the tattered robes, as if pulled across space, catching on planets and stars; he could put a name to the disquiet. _Dread._  

The Shinigami grinned, and there was something hollow about the look, as if they were only going through learned behaviors, as if they didn’t understand the emotion that drove such feeling. There was something inherently desolate about their transience. 

“Am I here for an eternity then?”

“No.” 

“That was the original price.” There was something accusatory in Minato’s voice, a demand that rules, that contracts be followed, and a quiet unease that this _being_ would disregard something that he had paid his life, no _,_ his _soul_ for. 

“No. My successor seems to have taken a liking to you. They have placed their mark on you, and it is not one that I can easily remove, nor am I particularly inclined to. So you will ride the train.” 

“Successor?”

“I cannot say. They may not exist yet; time follows its own rule in these realms.” The Shinigami looked frustrated, as though they were unable to see clearly (as though _prevented_ from seeing clearly) as they told him of their successor. (It was this frustration that made them seem most human, and something in Minato eased.)

Minato was silent, but oddly, the mention of the Shinigami’s successor did not create the same dread that hung around the being facing him. Instead, he felt that they must be an old friend… as if he had known them many eons…

“Where do I go now?”

The Shinigami glanced at the iron rods, a look (perhaps the only genuine look that Minato had happened to see on their face) of hungry, desperate longing passing for a shadow across the too-vivid green.

“You will ride the train.”

And in that moment a great calamitous sound filled the hall, a horn and a call to battle, it stirred the heart, drew it towards the great red black beast of machinery that appeared from the eternal roads closer and closer. It was awe-inspiring, and Minato felt a spark of anticipation, as if he were coming back to his village from the battlefront, coming _home._

And with a screeching, grinding noise the machine slid to a stop. On the side of the metal structure was a door that hissed open; fog and a vague scent of wildness spilled out. The Shinigami inclined their head to Minato, gestured to the _train_ without looking, eyes piercing _him_ instead.

“Good luck.”

And somehow, Minato felt that the half-there figure truly meant the sentiment, truly wished him well…

“You as well.”

There was a moment of shock, of complete unpreparedness, and the Shinigami reeled; Minato swung himself onto the great metal beast. An instant of liminality caught the scene—a time before leaving, before the return to the dreaded silence—and perhaps something had lightened as well, perhaps the Shinigami seemed more real, more concrete, more _there._

_“You mean it.”_

Then the train was gone and the station remained.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait—I’m currently out of the country, and finding time to write has been a struggle.
> 
> I based most of this chapter on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The manga doesn’t show us much of the physical and emotional effects of the Kyuubi Attack. From what I could tell, there was a fair amount of destruction—one scene showed a whole section of the Village in flames—and for Konoha to bounce back from that must have taken years. 
> 
> So yeah, I’ll be playing around with that a bit (yay worldbuilding).
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	7. untold warnings of remembrance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luna tells Hatake Kakashi, Itachi finds her, and the Tirghres swarm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! I have been very busy the last few weeks, but trying to snatch time to write from the jaws of Reality and Responsibility is a sometimes impossible task.

_ And she was falling. _

Two eyes widened, one snapping open to reveal a whirring crimson state, and his body began to move through fear and horror—she had slipped underneath the lightning strike, an expression of quiet surprise on her face, and suddenly Kakashi could not bear to see another broken body—could not bear to see this child fall (though he had gone on unranked missions and observed the most atrocious of horrors… this was his shatterpoint [but he was already shattered, had started to crack from the blade of his father’s tanto— _ black liquid staining the moonlight _ — _ don’t leave me _ — _ ihateyouihateyouIHATEYOU _ ], where all of his grief turned to a standstill and desperation sealed his movements.)

And suddenly he was plunging down as well, mouth clenched shut with pain, faster, faster—

(He wouldn’t make it in time, he never made it on time; wasn’t that the truth that they all avoided?  _ Nakamagoroshi no Kakashi— _ they called him Friend-Killer, cursed with a Shinigami’s touch. There was a cenotaph in his mind, erected to the lost and the list grew longer and longer—he clung to it, the only stability of his crumbling mind. They called him  _ Nakamagoroshi, _ and he knew it was  _ true _ .)

Launch off the tree, zigzag,  _ what is the point of catching her if you can’t land in a way that prevents injury—  _

Blood was flowing freely now, drawn from the painfully reopened wound, the pain a reproach against desperation. He was dizzy, had used up too much chakra for his mission (he had not thought of his own safety in months)—

He caught her, the impact driving his breath from his lungs, and a tenth of a second later, the ground rushed up to meet them. And he looked down…

The mismatched pair of eyes, one for a friend and the other to weep, met two spinning, spinning red. Her eyes widened in realization, and the moment was suspended, was stopped, because there was something that she had needed to tell him—needed to tell the man with one of her kinsman’s eyes, because she had  _ promised _ .

Their eyes met, and her magic  _ surged _ , choking, battling with her chakra, becoming corroded by the energy of  _ this _ world. So they continued falling, though they had landed near the roots of the tree.

*I*I*

Lightning flashed, a snapshot of a moment causing another moment—so sparks turned to fireflies and burned like so many constellations, signifying great and terrible stories and their characters (Luna remembers Orion, she remembers Cassiopeia and her daughter Andromeda, remembers a soft voice next to her ear and a warm hand encircling hers and pointing up into a cosmos, before wars and castles and Ginny.)

Lightning flashed and red eyes opened—they did not tell her that she would remember, that the scene would rewind before frantic eyes, but perhaps this was only hers to bear. But they didn’t know the secrets etched into her sight, didn’t know that she had carved words and promises into the space behind eyelids, didn’t know that she was not theirs, that she was a witch before she was ever a shinobi.

Lightning flashed…

(Everything was brilliant, defined and separated, and then that light was stolen, snatched up into the hands of an unseen god.)

(They did not tell her—)

_ —and the Fox was huge, rising into the heavens as if to brush the stars with its own flames—deathly terrifying, menacing, in a fatal, too real manifestation of a demon—there was a man with green eyes—a hurricane was slicing into her skin as she coughed up blood—blood dripping from lips which twitched up into a smile despite the scene _ —

— _ Tell him— _

_ —A parallel of tragedies—what’s the price?—his soul—I’m sorry— _

_ —Tell him— _

_ —They were never more beautiful, never more horrific, never more awe-inspiring, than in that moment. It was the height of the climax in the play and the actors were arrayed perfectly—blue eyes held steady as he struggled to get the words out, as he tried to quell the coughing— _

_ —Tell him— _

(They did not know—)

_ —you are loved. _

_ (Magic surged.) _

Slate grey and weeping red broke away, a noose curling around the ability to breathe, (a burning in the back of his throat, a burning in his chest where her magic had sparked; fire accentuated his movements.) He disappeared, running blindly, invisible— _ coward! _ and that was  _ his  _ voice mocking in its childishness, in its familiarity, and so he stumbled home and collapsed on the floor, tears drowning him though there was only rain on his skin.

And Luna lay in the rain and felt herself mold into the earth.

*I*I*

Itachi found her.

(Her brother would always find her.)

(Itachi still remembered the fear of the Attack, still remembered the crushing guilt as he ran to Sasuke and then her room, found it empty, found her shoes gone but  _ couldn’t do anything _ , couldn’t go and try to find her, had to leave her lost, Sasuke crying in his arms.)

She was burning—her eyes were burning, backlash from the conflict of her magic and the chakra that was her lifeforce slicing through her lungs, her heart beating an irregular melody. Shallow breaths, steady, steady—Itachi held her, a flash of fear appearing in the red of his eyes, as he could only watch, helpless, as his sister’s chakra clashed with another force, tearing apart her body. 

(Instinctively he knew that he could not take her to the hospital [not with her red _ red _ eyes, not with the anomaly of the internal wounds without any external sign, not with that (discomfiting) second energy inside of her]—there would be too many questions, too much suspicion—his sister must not be allowed to stand out, must always stay in his shadow. There were those who would break them just to see how they worked…)

((— _ but they were only human— _ ))

(All Hidden Villages were dangerous, held secrets which would turn loyalty against them, and Konoha only hid these cruelties better than others.)

Her shivers subsided, the two energies inside her forcing an uneasy peace.

Itachi bent over her, arms sliding gently under her exhausted body, lifting her frail form. Her eyes fluttered shut after recognizing the one who carried her. 

(Trust was a scarce commodity among shinobi— _ don't allow these stares, these suspicions, to loosen these bonds or these oaths _ —but she trusted freely and complete, and Itachi was afraid, so afraid, that someday she wouldn't trust at all.)

He clutched her closer (but what if she needed the doctors, what if she  _ really _ needed help? but they couldn’t trust the hospital, broken, their insufficiency exposed in the aftermath of the Attack), and ran. There was fear pounding in every jolting step; he wasn’t sure if this was a new fear, or the blanket dread that had dogged all of Konoha since the Attack, since the destruction and the political instability.

He kept off the roads—the Uchiha Military Police were spread thin, and too often, civilians grew ugly at the shinobi who had failed to keep them safe. And he was too much an Uchiha to be mistaken otherwise.

How had Tsukiko managed to wander into the training grounds that hardly anyone used?

(But he was hardly surprised—Tsukiko seemed to find herself in the oddest of places, places that she couldn’t have reasonably wandered into. His father hadn’t noticed, too busy, too stressed, too  _ tired _ , but Tsukiko was constantly in those areas that were dangerous, undiscovered, secret.)

The rain eased off, lightening.

Konoha smelled fresh, in a way that it hadn’t since the Attack. That winter had been harsh, one of the first truly  _ cold _ winters Konoha had witnessed. Perhaps the universe had conspired to pile on disaster after disaster on the Village, because in the midst of rebuilding, a cold front had come in; snow, for the first time in twenty years had been seen in the Fire Country. 

Regardless of the time that had past, the broken edges of society were present—the rubble yet uncleared, the distrust and paranoia, the children were subdued or screaming. 

Itachi wondered, detached, the only thing tying him to reality the weight in his arms, whether Konoha would forever hide the cracks and never mend them. (Sometimes, the world seemed like ice, like mirrors, something smashable, something fake and constructed.) 

There were voices, and he froze, panic crawling up his throat—

"Relax, cuz, it's just me." 

The tone was light, amused by his reaction, but when Itachi turned his head, he only met hard red eyes. 

"Shisui."

"Who did this, Itachi?"

But there was no culprit, no aggressor, and he'd come too late, after his sister had been torn apart by the hurricane energy still inside of her. 

The red eyes scanned Tsukiko, her body, reading the almost imperceptible movements and constructing the scene. 

"Let's get her back, ok?" The voice was almost gentle, and Itachi felt some of the tension bled from his shoulders. 

(Shisui wasn’t that much older than him, wasn’t that much more experienced, and there was no logical reason to be so comforted by his mere presence, but somehow, when he found them, Itachi’s breathing, his panic, and his worry stabilized and turned lesser.)

“Ok.” 

*I*I*

(Sometimes the clan was a dark miasma of hopelessness, of festering anger and resentment.)

Luna watched her brother ( _ pride was the set of her father’s shoulders; pride and a quiet despair that had begun to shroud him _ ) as he walked to her. There were whispers, murmurs as he passed, but that moment narrowed to exclude the outside. Her father congratulated him, warmth seeping into his tone, and Luna met her brother’s eyes solemnly.

She stood beside him, slipping her fingers into his, because in this at least she was confident—that she would always love him with a beautiful intensity that sometimes took her breath away. That they would forever be blood—but that they were linked by something deeper than the iron that lined their veins.

He squeezed her fingers carefully. 

The metal gleamed too bright on his forehead and Luna wondered at it. What did it mean to be marked so? The Tirghres were spinning shining threads around the heads of those that stood there, a web of pride and protectiveness—Luna reached out a hand to brush the wings of one, and the bared needle teeth snarled, snapping.

“What do you see, hime?”

She turned to the voice, letting go of Itachi’s hand, drifting as her brother spoke to her father. “It’s a Tirghre—they’ve swarmed today.”

“Be my eyes?” he grinned, as sharp as the creatures that only she could see.

“They have wings, gossamer-fine and catching the sunlight and spinning it into threads. A smile like yours, senbon teeth, all pointy. Scales like dragons and very protective—you have your own, Shisui-san.”

“Aww, hime, didn’t I tell you to drop the -san?”

She beamed at him. “You did.”

“Aah well,” he sighed in defeat. “Perhaps someday…”

Itachi finished talking to their father and walked to Luna and Shisui. Shisui brightened out of his slump.

“Itachi! Congratulations!” 

He inclined his head. “Thank you, Shisui.”

“Let me treat you to dango! And of course, hime as well.” He bowed low before her, and she giggled.

(They ignored the whispers of the villagers, the stares and murmurs—they were more absorbed in each other [forced themselves to narrow their focus to their small group]. They ignored the vender’s searching look and the customers that minutely drew away [but they were Uchiha, famed for their eyes, how could they not notice?] They still smiled easily, still laughed, but their dismissal of the attention of those outside their group fluttered in the cage shoved to the back of their minds.)

“So, what does my favorite cousin feel about graduating?”

Itachi chewed slowly, thinking over his answer. “Hn.”

Luna giggled, and Shisui threw his hands up into the air. “That’s all? Aren’t you glad that there’s a chance that you’ll be taking missions with  _ me _ ?”

“No.”

Shisui despaired.

Itachi finished off his dango and swiped some from his cousin, who made a noise of outrage. 

The evening dissolved in laughter and a hide-and-seek-and-chase game across Konoha.

* * *

_ addendum: the Uchiha problem _

* * *

_ “Some left in disgust—Uchiha Fugaku, in angered grief, secluded himself, driven further by the village’s suspicions. _ "  (ch. 4 - palaces in clouds)

*I*I*

Uchiha Fugaku had hoped. 

Minato had been a great leader; he acknowledged that, and he acknowledged the potential that the Yellow Flash had. He hadn’t been a close friend of his, but their wives had been best friends and he enjoyed Minato’s company better than most (even after the Kannabi Bridge incident—the Elders had been furious when he had reluctantly allowed the Hatake boy to keep his Obito’s Sharingan.)

But even beyond that, Minato had  _ listened _ . 

(The cult of personality that surrounded Konoha’s Yondaime was a terrifying thing to behold.)

And Fugaku had been willing to give himself in service to the young Hokage; he had believed that his clan could finally be content.

But then Minato had gone and killed himself.

(It should have been the Third— _ his time had passed _ —but it was the young,  _ brilliant _ Fourth that left.)

And what had that gotten him? His son was a pariah, his beloved village was slowly crumbling from within, and the clan heads had lost cohesion.

Oh, Fugaku was  _ angry _ . 

The Third had been reinstated, but he  _ shouldn’t have been _ . He had grown old and softer than he had been when he had first taken the hat. He grown old and crueler than he had already been. (It was a strange dichotomy; his kindness made him cruel, his delusional belief and hope wounded instead of inspired.)

The Council was back into his and his teammate’s hands. 

(Who had taught them? Senju Tobirama. Senju Tobirama, who had loathed the Uchiha for Madara’s betrayal, who had caged them with the Military Police—allowing precious few of the Uchiha to rise in rank and position. They had inherited his hate, and it was a  _ disease _ .)

With Madara remembered by the oldest generation—by the Third, by Danzo and Hotaru and Koharu—and the confusion of the Kyuubi attack, suspicion had fallen on them, the Uchiha. But it had been Danzo to order them back, as support instead of the front lines, and Fugaku was  _ angry _ and  _ tired  _ of the injustice of it all. 

It was a weary bitterness, a defeated one, and he was left standing with nothing but his anger and his loathing of the Council and Sarutobi Hiruzen. If he hadn’t had that anger, his children would be fatherless and his clan in chaos; but his anger (created by love, because he cannot bear to see his clan suffering, to see his firstborn be regarded as unnatural, because the villager’s hate affects him more than he shows) is iron in his blood and so he is driven by a corrosive. He knows his time is short, because he will burn out, because he cannot live on anger, but it is enough (for now).

They had taken away their place in Konoha, secluding them away, away to the edges. They had taken away their pride as shinobi, restraining them to the Military Police. They had been suspicious, shown their suspicion openly and infected the village. Fugaku knew how the village could hate—hadn’t he investigated Sakumo’s suicide? Hadn’t he seen Orochimaru,  _ one of the Sannin, _ be shunned by the village (for good reason, but they hadn’t know then, and perhaps they had driven him to the labs)? 

Hadn’t he seen the abuse of Minato’s son, and the Third’s inaction?

Oh, Uchiha Fugaku nursed a deep wound in his heart that they kept forcing open. 

So when treasonous thoughts ran through the Compound, he couldn’t bring himself to suppress them, to deny them, when he felt the same, when injustice pressed against them from all sides. He wanted to scream like they did, wanted to burn and burn and  _ burn. _

And in some ways it was a relief,  _ let the wounds bleed and let us cauterize them with fire. _

But Fugaku lost his happiness the day his Hokage died.

Fugaku lost his hope the day Minato sacrificed himself.

(Fugaku found his hatred the day the Third took back the seat he should never have reclaimed.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember: Fugaku is an unreliable narrator. Repeat: he is an unreliable narrator. Also: these character's beliefs do not represent my own. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading :)


	8. can you see the cracks?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait!
> 
> Real life is extremely intrusive on the best of days, and that will be all the excuse I will give you. (In all honestly I've sorta been overwhelmed recently, and it's only due to the proximity of Thanksgiving and the small reprieve it's giving me that I was able to get back to this.) But thank you for reading!
> 
> Honestly I'm not quite satisfied with this chapter, but I figured I'd kept you all waiting too long at any rate so here it is, in its imperfect glory.

Uchiha Tsukiko was a strange girl—

He was a civilian, always painfully aware of the gaps that existed between him and those who had brothers, sisters, parents who put on shining metal identifiers to fight and bleed… There were not very many civilians in his year; the Kyuubi attack had resulted in the fear and apprehension of the profession. (How many had died in the attack? Konoha’s military force had been _leveled_ —parents saw the memorial, saw the body bags and the destruction and withdrew their children, moved far, _far_ away. But he saw civilians crushed underneath houses from the great structural collapse of the Kyuubi’s destruction, and resolved never to be _collateral damage_. Thus it was a specific type of desperation that drove him, though he didn’t have any advantage in this bloodied business.)

Uchiha Tsukiko was a strange girl. For a clanborn, she didn’t flaunt the easy arrogance that so many of the others had (arrogance tempered by either steel or fear—the Attack held consequences over everything, and there was no one who did not know one of the fallen, _especially_ the clanborn). No, even though she was around three or four years younger than the rest of the class, she didn’t seem to understand her position as _“prodigy._ ” She was a dilemma.

She excelled of course—her body, while younger, had been trained—but she didn’t strive (like him, like, oh, everyone in their class) (she didn’t seem to hold the fear that so many held, the fear of falling behind, the fear of helplessness) to be the best. Instead she—

“I think that Hashirama must have had Wrackspurts in his hair.”

Yeah. That was history class. 

The other children didn’t know what to make of her (and some looked on her with suspicion, because even he could see the growing distrust towards the Uchiha in the small flickered gazes), hell, _he_ didn´t know what to make of her (but even that confusion faded to the background against his own fears and aspirations, his _desperation_ ). The teachers learned to ignore her or argue, quite fruitlessly, with her about Konoha’s founding, the Shinobi Code, or whatever else had caught her fancy. 

Uchiha Tsukiko herself did not argue—it was like she and the teachers were operating on totally different levels. They’d expect her to answer with answer choice one, two or three, and she would give a dreamy smile and ponder the existence of magical creatures.

He could almost _feel_ the frustration as she continually scored higher than the ones that were actually trying. (Except on those tests that she would _bomb_ spectacularly, when she disagreed with the textbook or the question itself and would go off on spiderweb tangents…) (Once there were jeers, but they soon realized that she truly didn’t care, that she didn’t see why it was a shame to fail and fail again.)

She was fascinating, but Fujino Hideshi lived by the proverb that curiosity had indeed killed the cat and that taking interest in such a strange girl wasn’t going to help him any. Besides, he just didn’t have _time_ for indulging his curiosity.

Of course, that ultimately didn’t matter when they were put together as partners for a group project.

(It was probably because he was one of the few that had decided to give up on reacting to her. The teachers knew better than to put Tsukiko with a student who would only endlessly complain to them, or worse, get their _clan_ to complain to them.)

“Fujino Hideshi,” he gave her a short bow. “I’m your partner.”

She blinked rather slowly at him. 

“There’s an Eadocha on your shoulder.”

He sighed. This was going to be a long few weeks.

*I*I*

Actually, Tsukiko wasn’t entirely impossible to work with, but Uchiha Itachi was _definitely_ the scariest person that he’d ever come across. And he was pretty sure that Tsukiko-san’s brother didn’t approve of him. He felt rather skittish in the Uchiha Household and wondered why he’d decided to work there.

Oh right. It was because he _really_ didn’t want Uchiha Tsukiko to see his home. ( _He really didn’t want her to see the state of his family._ ) 

He could feel the Uchiha Heir’s gaze boring in between his shoulder blades. 

Tsukiko-san merely wandered to her room, expectance in her step, and he followed with a stack of nonfiction library books on the various topics. It was the biggest project of the year and they were supposed to choose a trade route and then, from the information that they could find, explain what threats were to be anticipated, the rank of the escort mission, the resources that the shinobi should have, and also how important the mission was in terms of Konoha’s gain and economy.

(Actually the real assignment was something like “Write a collaborative paper on how you would go about planning and executing an escort mission. (Include materials that you need to pack and what you will prepare for.)” But the question itself was annoyingly vague—how was he or supposed to know what to plan for if he didn’t know the terrain, the client, the environment? His solution was to treat it as an actual mission. He was fairly sure Tsukiko-san wouldn’t mind.)

They worked in silence for about two hours. Tsukiko was a faster reader than he was, flitting from passage to passage, writing notes that were either brilliant in analysis or completely useless as they referenced her confounding imaginaries. 

But when that first day was up, he thought that they had made good progress—he knew the environment now (economic and political context), knew the trade routes (generally through Fire Country and various allies), knew the background information (C-rank) (usually taken in pairs of chuunin or a jonin-genin team) necessary to plan.

It was the second day that Tsukiko-san broke the silence with the words:

“Hideshi-san, we should go interview a merchant!”

There was a gleam in her eyes, a sharp interest that was completely opposing to the dreamy, wandering state that she was usually in. He agreed—it was a valid source of information after all, even if he had no idea how to conduct an interview.

He shouldn’t have worried, honestly. 

Of course Tsukiko-san would take charge and be surprisingly competent at eliciting information (that is, in between the comments about Nargles and Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and other such strange words).

They made a surprisingly competent team. He would pave the way with explanations: _we are students of Konoha’s Shinobi Academy, and our assignment involves learning about escort missions…_ Tsukiko-san would then begin questioning, driven and focused, unwavering, and he would be the one to bow and thank the source for their time. 

It took three days, and they interviewed two merchants and a chuunin who was indulgent enough to give them advice.

Tsukiko-san compiled the interview, instinctively picking out the most useful information and handing the edited version to him. The interviews and the analysis of them took up about fifteen pages of the thirty page document written in a mixture of his pragmatically legible scrawl and her spidery hand. (When he saw the mentions of otherworldly creatures, he sighed but didn’t erase them. Tsukiko beamed.)

When it was time to turn in their reports, his and Tsukiko-san’s was considerably thicker than the others’. By about twenty pages. (But to be fair, at least eight of those pages were only a third full of actual writing as the were transcripts from the interrogations)

They _might_ have gone overboard….

*I*I*

“Kiko-chan—”

There was something terribly wrong, something hollow (dead), about the voice of her brother. 

It was twilight, and the air was ponderous and heavy, as if the space itself had slowed, had wearied. (And flashes of white glimpsed, and perhaps reality was just a faded covering on a train station, perhaps this tangible light was all too fragile.) Spring was turning to summer and the transition was a mountain slowly melting from the heights of winter.

(It was both too long ago and not enough that the Fox had appeared in devastating fury—such tragedies do not fade, only fester. It was too long ago that they had already forgotten the taste of the Fourth's glory, of his hope, of his too real belief [a belief tempered by the grimness of their profession, a belief that was cunning and as sharp as the edges of his three pronged kunai]. It was too close that the despair blanketed the village still, that suspicion became an organized force, that _didn't they see that they saw? didn't they know that their stares and paranoia and distrust was_ too _obvious?_ )

It was odd than Itachi had come to her, odd that he had found her—she was in one of the quieter training grounds, one that turned swampy with the influx of spring rains and was summarily abandoned and forgotten by most of the shinobi populace. It was quiet, and she was sitting on one of the few dry protruding roots of the Hashirama tree near the middle of the clearing.

He had appeared in silence, blood-painted, the aftershocks of something shattered on his face. He had appeared in silence as if expecting (himself) (her and her too tranquilized place) to disappear. He had appeared without warning, and if Luna had been anything but herself she might have flinched from his abruptness. 

(She did flinch, but from his voice and the shards of glass that he had trekked over to reach her, to reach familiarity and not his arrival. She did flinch, but because those glass shards had made her and this familiarity as fragile as they, completely breakable and able to bled her brother out from his foundation.)

Itachi stumbled.

Luna (but to him she would ever be Tsukiko, and it was _enough_ ) opened her arms and embraced him, holding him. Minute tremors that accompanied the quiet, irregular breaths; he leaned into her, grief in the fingers clutching fabric, and sometimes words were never enough to define humanity. 

She didn’t ask, and he didn’t answer, and it was only later that she heard of the orange masked man, of the broken team and the apathetic sensei, of red spinning eyes and expectations.

It was only later when her brother stood before their father and reported.

Their father’s voice was quiet, and Itachi heard _cold_ , but she could hear only rain and barely whispered sadness and a dead anger that drowned both: “Our bloodline holds a terrible power and influence; the Sharingan is your inheritance, you must be aware of its power. It brings joy to the clan when one of its own excels. I am proud of you.” He didn’t turn around from the garden to face Itachi, and Luna wondered if the Creidea has left a hollow achiness. 

(It had burrowed itself into her father, a parasite, and then it had died. Perhaps, were it still living, she would have been able to use its own antagonisms to get her father to reject it, but now its decay and poison had seeped into his very air and threaded through his lungs and his throat and Luna feared that to eliminate the poison would be to destroy her father.)

But her brother could not see the beast that had died and turned their father’s blood poisonous. 

(Her heart ached.)

Itachi clenched his fists. She slipped her hand into his own ( _I know you are angry, brother, I know you are grieved_ ) and he relaxed the tension in his arms and took a deep breath, calming himself.

“But you must continue to be diligent, even though you have obtained the Sharingan. Bring pride to the clan.”

It felt like a death knell. 

(It felt like poison in their blood.)

“Yes, Father.” 

*I*I*

In time the trembling stopped, and he was alone, bereft of a team, and sometimes he would believe himself the endpoint of the deepest lakes of Kiri, numb and with mirrors of water between himself and the world. He improved, hurtling towards a dread of something as sharp as glass, towards a poison, towards—

“Aniki! You told me you’d play with me when you got back!” Sasuke looked up hopefully.

Itachi schooled his face into a resemblance of a smile. “Aah. So I did.”

Sasuke’s expression turned to shocked joy, and he felt his heart inhale a stutter, felt his eyes slipping away ( _but no, look, you must face what you will reject._ )

“Sorry, Sasuke. I need to borrow your brother today.”

He let out a breath in relief—he would not have to turn his brother down again. (He wouldn’t see the pointed disappointment.) Shisui grinned at him, and he could only be grateful.

Sasuke was pouting.

_Poke._

He yelped and sprang back, childish disgruntlement in his offended stance, and Itachi smirked, a pale ghost of the usual smile, but he felt numb, that pane of ice only melting a little as Sasuke interacted with him as he always (forever) had.

His brother turned to kitten footsteps.

“Nee-chan, will _you_ play with me?”

And if his tone was somewhat accusatory, well, Itachi felt that he deserved that pang of sorrow.

Tsukiko stepped into the entryway, hands finding sandals and slipping them on. She smiled at the eager boy, and Itachi felt another pang as he remembered cold eyes and cold stares and the urge to scream _what have we done? when did we earn your enmity?_ —

(His team had splintered—Tenma forever held in mind’s eyes as upright, a surprised tenseness to his stance as blood splattered his petrified body—Shinko had quit, sobbing to him and he could do _nothing_ —Minazuki-sensei had looked at him, dull, uncaring, dismissive—and that was when he had applied to take the Chuunin Exams alone. He thought that he might also splinter, might also cease to exist…)

Sasuke brightened at Tsukiko’s nod, and ran off, back into the house.

His sister picked up her backpack and followed him outside, where she waved as she set off for the Academy. Shisui laughed and called her _hime_ and he could see the his own heart in those same eyes.

Then it was time to go, to prepare, to mold himself into a deadly visage of death.

*I*I*

It was Itachi who asked her if she wanted to train with the Sharingan.

She looked at him solemnly (she knew what he was truly asking and her mind flashed back to a Room that came and went and the silvery, glowing hare that had nuzzled her as if they were one and the same) and agreed, tightening a hold on the hand that had slipped into hers.

(Sometimes it felt as though her brother was slipping into a place where she could not follow—a place not of their reality nor of the non-reality that was the train station, but of him and him alone and all Luna could do was clutch at his physical presence.)

The moon’s glow provided enough light for them to pick their way silently, furtively to a secluded training ground. The air had an edge to it—it was nearing winter and the trees had lost their leaves, casting asymmetrical shadows that fused and melted with the scudding clouds.

They reached the clearing and let their eyes burn red.

Luna opened her eyes, and there was the scene— _crimson chakra coating the air and last, brilliant smiles, and a Fox—_ flashing across her eyes again, and she held it, delicately, gently, to her chest and slowly let go, let it dissipate into fireflies. 

The world wavered, sharpened, and they were moving.

(And she thought him beautiful in that moment, between shadows and moonshine, beautiful and terrible, mock strikes to the body’s weaknesses, and they danced in spirals. There was a stillness to the movement, of the eyes fixed on each other; there was no music, simply harsh breaths and exhilaration running through their veins. They fit together as two hawks soaring in a complex courtship, as the give and take of the sea and the moon…)

(And he thought her the sky, free, airy, and only half real—but with every blow they exchanged he confirmed and grounded her. They predicted each other, expecting and receiving, evading and confronting; he swept his right leg up in a high kick, and she slid underneath it, a hand poised to strike at his stomach, which he deflected to create an opening—circular actions of lethal beings. It was not that she was near his level of skill—he was _genin_ , soon to be _chuunin_ , and she was still Academy—but their styles complemented each other: hers fluid and flexible, his direct hits and a focus on efficiency. The Sharingan lessened the gap [and already she was better than his peers], and oddly enough, she moved as if experienced in combat, never hesitating, never pausing…)

It lasted eight minutes, and Luna’s harsh breathing soon filled the clearing—her body was not yet developed and tired easily. But perhaps the line of tension in Itachi’s shoulders lessened some, perhaps his stance was more open, freer, perhaps his lips twitched up into a glancing smile as they headed back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that Luna was the daughter of an editor, born into the newspaper business. She looks for facts—she knows how to do research—she’s in Ravenclaw because she seeks knowledge. I think that standardized education is detrimental to her, but remember the DA (practical learning that had a reason, a purpose)? She excelled. 
> 
> (also keep in mind that Luna is, in the form that she is currently in, an Uchiha. They have their own forms of clout, even within a village suspicious of them, and teachers are probably more willing to overlook eccentricities in a major clan kid than say a civilian child.)
> 
> In regards to Luna and Harry and the Deathly Hallows situation—well, there’s a lot to say and more of it will be revealed as the story goes on, but think of time as relative. The point of connection between the Narutoverse and the world of wizards is… odd. Shouldn’t technically exist, at least for humans. It flickers and moves—it’s not a set point. If time is line, then the point of connection between worlds are beads that hold the two strings together. They are removable and sometimes they slip off the strings, or one of the strings completely. So when you see Harry in chapter three, it’s his past self, the self that hasn’t boarded the train yet, who is the one there. 
> 
> Also a bit of a personal headcanon: children’s minds/brains develope faster and can contain more information than is normal in our reality due to chakra influx. When children are young, chakra and energy tends to pool in the brain area. Evolution wise, the increased protection around the head serves to both provide an extra level of security for the developing mind and also generates a buffer around the ambient/nature chakra that the mind could potentially be sensitive to. Sensor’s minds are one that, due to genetic fluctuations, have a thinner chakra buffer near the mind. It also means that infant mortality rates for natural sensors are marginally higher than that of a “normal” child with the same amount of chakra.


	9. φιλία, στοργή, and ξενία

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The title, translated is philia, storge, xenia. I had trouble with the title - it was originally "love is a chronic pain" - but. It didn't really convey what I wanted it to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm so sorry that this took so long! I had it written, but almost felt paralyzed when faced with the immense task of editing it. (I am am anxiety-ridden person by default, and perfection is always out-of-reach, which is sometimes extremely stressful.)

The sun was setting in dusky flecks of gold shavings, bright ash settling down into a thin layer on the horizon. It filtered into the window, swirling into dust, creating a muted glow that softened the room; it made the space welcoming, immersive—a place apart from the too blank miasma of hopelessness. 

Uchiha Mikoto found herself in that room more and more, looking up at the ceiling where paint held sunlight captive—where she would see her own likeness as well as her family’s; where she would see Minato in all his radiance (the words  _ tell him _ etched next to his perpetual smile, and the thin thread of red that bound him to an unseen)—she found herself reaching toward them, towards a dream, and wondered if she would ever let go. 

_ (the threads of destiny are not easy broken, but they can be twisted beyond resemblance, twisted to something tainted, something gone sour, and Mikoto knew and did nothing) _

Gold chains, as if to secure the prison of these memories and a script that she could not read (sometimes Tsukiko was undefinable, some being beyond humanity, beyond morality, beyond the considerations of this axis—but how could she accuse when she herself was beginning to hollow, the husk of this skinsuit too tight around her shoulders, her smiles). Her daughter had always touched the most insignificant with delicacy, every brushstroke edged in permanence. Tsukiko painted as if she were carving the Memorial Stone; every line was irreversible and only drawn once, the precision a trait you could see in her movements, the needle of her words, the strange appearances when she was not wanted. Somehow, those likenesses seemed to breathe, and Mikoto caught her inhale halfway through and forgot how to stay more alive than mere pictures.

More and more often now, the house was quiet; both Itachi and Tsukiko gone to become perfect soldiers, to become  _ strong _ , and sometimes she looked at the chasm that existed between her and her children with inscrutable eyes and a weary aching in her bones. She did not understand them; she did not understand herself; she did not understand motherhood. Sasuke was the only child in that house who was truly  _ hers _ , and she was thankful to these small mercies, these present distractions as her youngest filled the house with joyous shouts, with noise and laughter and complaints—the times when even he was not there stretched and preyed on her, and she found herself gravitating to her daughter’s room to stare, pensive, at the mural.

(Tsukiko frightened her. Itachi perhaps was the better shinobi, the  _ weapon _ , raised to be too soft and too hard [and the dichotomy would break him], but it was Tsukiko who seemed omniscient. It was Tsukiko whose calm never broke, who peered into souls better left unseen. Her room had always seemed apart from the rest of the household—a fold in time—and though the surface showed the typical child [a messy room, everything stacked, sometimes precariously, notes stuck to the wall with anything available], she could never cross the threshold without feeling the alien, the strange hum of otherness.)

Perhaps she came to the room to measure the distance that she stretched thinner and thinner between herself and her children, herself and reality, herself and— Perhaps she came into the room to sample death before the Shinigami came for her crimes, her translucence that already was pulling up her anchors one by one. Perhaps— But no matter, she was there now, and time seemed to stop… 

(She wondered why she was content [passive] alone in the house, why she stayed in solitude instead of the drug that was conflict, that was danger—because Uchiha Mikoto was still a shinobi, and these bursts of adrenaline were an intoxication she desperately needed… She wondered why she could not find the strength to go out to the field once more.)

Before the door opened, she sensed the flare of the bright, expansive chakra that was her daughter and drew out of the room, turning to the entrance to greet Tsukiko with an embrace that held, perhaps, a hint of desolation. 

“How was your day, musume?”

*I*I*

Shisui laughed wildly as he dodged another set of kunai and flash-stepped forward to draw his katana across the Iwa nin’s throat. (Because that bastard  _ deserved _ to die after he had cut open Hirumi, after he had seen her look of pain and fear and  _ sneered— _ ) They were doing pest control again—the countries were converging on Konoha like sharks to blood, and Konoha could not afford to be kind. Not after the Hyuuga affair, not after the decimation of their forces by the Fox, not after the weariness that the Third Shinobi War had left on their village.

(Every shinobi had their own ways of dealing with murder—his was the perpetual smile, hiding the desperate cunning and knife-sharp resolve—it stayed the despair, the question of why… His was the drunkenness that came with the adrenaline that clouded pensive thoughts and left only lightning reactions.)

(His was the reminder that those who were  _ his _ were safe.)

He spun around and decimated the swath of forest with fire— _ too much, but fast, he couldn’t do damage control, who _ cared _ iftheyALLBURNED— _ taking out an enemy-nin (not much younger than him, he looked  _ afraid _ , and Shisui pushed aside the pang of something ugly in his chest at the smell of burning flesh), and then turned support his squad leader, who was taking on the other two who’d ambushed them.

They hadn’t expected the boldness, hadn’t expected the desperation, they’d grown complacent with months of patrol and never a hint of action— 

A mistake, they were shinobi,  _ they should have fucking expected this. _

Using shushin to reach the one closest to him with a slash across the ribs and then flickering away to Akihiro’s side, Shisui guarded his leader’s back, holding up a kunai to ward off a strike. (He was at a disadvantage; he didn’t have the shunshin to use as he wished—he had to stay as support (he had always been the worse at defense—the ability to move faster than even the Sharingan could track did not help when he needed to be a solid presence between his teammates and the enemy), both guarding Hirumi [who was  _ bleeding out, dammit _ ] and playing distraction for one of the Iwa nin so Akihiro could hopefully finish the other off.) He gritted his teeth as a long, thin gash opened up across his arm when he was too slow to stop a kick from connecting ( _ who had blades in their shoes, what the  _ fuck). They weren’t giving him enough time to form any handseals, probably wary after the fire that had burned one of their members alive.

_ Shit,  _ he didn’t know if they could get through this, Hisao was down, Hirumi was down, Akihiro was bleeding from a deep gouge on his back, he was running out of chakra and stamina—they’d called for help as soon as a fight seemed inevitable, but he wasn’t sure if any patrols were close enough to make it on time—

*I*I*

It was the rockfall again. 

Crushing darkness and he couldn’t breath  _ couldn’t breath _ , and a pained scream, all he remembered was  _ that scream _ and whirring, whirring red. It surrounded and engulfed him and suddenly he couldn’t breathe as the iron stench of blood filled his lungs—

_ Tell him I thought of him as a son.  _

Moonlight streaking in from the window, and the sword received it, gleaming in a light that cut him open and vulnerable and black stains that would never come out—all he could think was that  _ he _ finally looked at peace, and how  _ he _ couldn’t find it, couldn’t find it with him, how he couldn’t be  _ enough, would never be enough, he was a  _ curse. 

— _ be careful and live— _

And Minato-sensei, his sun, his commander, his life—and the smile he had for him and the fire he loved and then the Fox and the red hate that curled and curled and caved his chest in—

_ Let me go! I have to help! _

_ No. _ cold, strict eyes. _ You are a  _ child. 

Why are you stopping me? I am not a  _ child,  _ I strayed off that path at in moonlight—SenseiisindangerhowcanIstaybehindhowcanIcarveoutthatpartofmethatmustbe _ guardinghisbackHEMADEMEHISGUARDhEwAsriGhtNoTtoTruSTmE? _

_ Tell him— _

The sickly light of the experiments and the Third’s  _ hesitation _ , Orochimaru’s words  _ you are no match for me, child,  _ the snakes strangling, slithering up his legs and binding his arms to his body and a cold amused voice— _ stick to hiding, dog of konoha— _

Hatake Kakashi woke, the pain in his chest morphing into a shadow that obscured his heart. He let his head fall back, leaning against the wall in his darkened apartment, breathing shallowly, trying to keep his mind blank— _ he wasn’t ready to face his sorrows _ —and thoughts turned to a little girl with grey-red eyes who had told him what could only be a falsehood.  _ (But it had felt  _ true _. She had spilled secrets that she was not meant to know.) _ He had not gone looking for her; not only was she an Uchiha, and the Uchiha  _ hated  _ him, but he was afraid…

He was tired these days, but that was good, tiredness numbed the mind, banished thoughts that might otherwise destroy him, kept him focused on only the present, on only surviving. He needed it as an anchor—all his other reasons had been destroyed. Sometimes he would find himself standing in front of the Memorial Stone and wondering desperately if they would approve of him— _ probably not, he had  _ failed  _ them, unable to follow their dreams, their values _ —he never stayed long, the silence was crushing and he could not bear the judgement in the names that had left him unworthy and alive. 

Putting on his mask, he left through the window, in search of something dangerous, in search of temporary amnesia. 

*I*I* 

The world revolved and their places switched—this time it was Luna on the stage, bright metal defining her path, Itachi offering a small smile from the crowd. From her left, Fujino Hideshi gave her a nod of acknowledgement; they had been friendly since the escort mission assignment and had worked together since.

The Tirghres were again swarming, teeth bared and needle bright, snapping and proud in their ferocity. She stepped down and wondered how the world was so bright—artificial brightness, like Hermione’s bluebell fire—and her father looked down at her solemnly and said  _ you have made me proud _ . His hand was warm and heavy on her shoulder, the only sign of his acceptance of her accomplishment, but she leaned in and his grip tightened. Her brother stood next to her, holding he hand as they had done three years ago at his graduation, and they listened to the Third’s speech. 

(Her father’s eyes were obsidian, brittle and glasslike, and his body stiffened as the speech dragged on— _ loyalty _ , said the old man bent under a shadow of brightness,  _ unity _ , and her father turned away, bitter.)

This time they met Shisui at the hospital, after their father had gone home. He turned to them with a too bright smile (Luna saw the empty spaces next to him and saddened.) 

“Hime, you passed! Congratulations!”

“Hello, Shisui-san!”

He pouted, an old, familiar motion by now. The air lightened. “Still with the -san?”

Luna smiled. 

The room was a worn white, and light filtered weakly into the room from the solitary window. That was getting late but the sun set near bedtime these days, and you couldn’t trust your own eyes. In the first bed near the far right window, Shisui-san’s chest was swathed with bandages and an IV was attached to his left arm. His eyes looked tired, bruising shadows hanging heavily underneath them. The Tirghre on his shoulder drooped, hissing defeatedly at her gaze.

Itachi stepped forward, voice subdued. “How are you, Shisui?”

There was an uncomfortable pause. It was a meaningless phrase, something to fill the dreadful silence that had sprung up around them.

The wide smile turned acidic. “I’m  _ fine _ , cousin.”

Shisui struggled with his composure.  _ Itachi was not the clan nor its elders but he didn’t have a right to ask Shisui to lie to give him the socially accepted form of  _ we’re all fucked and have been for too long— 

“I brought you flowers.” Luna held out a bunch of quite odd looking fire-red petals,clearly wildflowers and already slightly wilted from the long walk there. The stalks were stuffed inside a lumpy ceramic cup. 

“Is this the ultimate form of Hime’s favor?” The tone was teasing, gentled. The smile felt a bit more genuine now. “I am greatly honored.” 

She set it on the side table and Shisui looked at it for a long while as they talked of trivial things like the Academy and hospital food and the weather; when they left as the sun slipped underneath the horizon line, their cousin’s eyes were still shifting to the flowers.

*I*I*

“...and Team Four is Uchiha Tsukiko, Hiraide Katsuki, and Fujino Hideshi led by Matsuo Shigeto.”

Hideshi-san nodded to her, the same nod of acknowledgement he’d given her at graduation, but Katsuki scowled. 

One of the shinobi slouched on the wall—waiting, no doubt, for that announcement—straightened. With a sweeping glance across the room, singling out the three now-teammates, he walked out the door. The Academy teacher’s lips pursed and her eyes narrowed in displeasure at the jonin who had left. 

Then she turned back to her class and snapped at her former students, “What are you waiting for?”

All three scrambled to gather their things and bolt out the door. 

Their new jounin-sensei led them (at a pace they were hard pressed to follow, considering the crowded marketplace in the middle of the day) to a teahouse. The two boys were panting by then, but Luna had remained oddly serene considering how quickly they had moved. Hideshi was incredulous, and Katsuki glared at her.

The jonin was waiting at a table for four and sipping a cup of steaming tea, his dark blue eyes dismissive as he observed them. He was almost twice her height, grim with grey-brown hair and faded scars on his face and hands (the only parts of his skin that weren’t covered in the standard jounin uniform). They hurriedly sat down, somehow feeling the command though he hadn’t said anything.

“Names and the trait most likely to get you killed in combat.”

The order had been given sharply, before they had had the chance to completely settle down in their seats. They glanced at each other. 

“Uchiha Tsukiko, stamina,” she replied after a bit of thought. 

There was a rather long pause as the jonin turned her teammates, wearily expectant. (she was reminded silver, wild hair and crimson tinted water, a whisper, absentminded— _ is it dangerous?—only to the heart. _ )

“Fujino Hideshi, skill difference.”

Katsuki scowled at the admission. “Hiraide Katsuki… recklessness.” His tone was reluctant, resentful.

The jonin nodded curtly, almost uncaring. “Matsuo Shigeto, the unexpected. Call me whatever you want. We will meet here tomorrow morning at 6:00 am. Be on time.” He stood up sharply and disappeared.

And that was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! This chapter was hard - I don't think that I really managed the switch in perspectives all that well. Honestly at some point they all started sounding the same (or maybe that's the sleep deprivation talking? Would not be surprised.) Thoughts on Luna and her interactions with the other?


	10. crescendo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! (I swear that even though I have more time to write now [for reasons that you all know] I've been losing more and more motivation to just move or get up from bed.)

(Sometimes a flash of hopelessness, and Luna would feel her heart clench.)

*I*I*

They weren’t a team, not yet, too new to themselves and each other—Katsuki still scowled as he was forced to work with them, Tsukiko was still  _ odd _ in that undefinable way, and he… he was still civilian, was still desperate, and it showed. But they were smoothing out, becoming more adult, more  _ shinobi _ , than clumsy children (children didn’t take missions, children didn’t swear loyalty, children had no grasp of the stakes in this business), and so he was glad. (or at least accepting.)

Shigeto-sensei was  _ tired _ , most of the time. They had yet to see him out of uniform and he always arrived precisely on time and left immediately when training or missions were over. He moved with an air of infinite exhaustion, and Hideshi wondered what uncaring higher up had assigned a clearly reluctant ( _ competent _ ) jonin to become babysitter to three genin when he made it very apparent that he didn’t want them. That wasn’t to say that he did not teach—no, Shigeto-sensei taught thoroughly, and Hideshi could feel himself improving, his movements becoming more and more fluid and natural, but the man  _ didn’t want them _ . 

(He hated the feeling, the sense that he was a burden on top of many other burdens, and it drove him to push his body to its limits to be  _ recognized _ — _ we are your  _ team,  _ Sensei _ . In a way their expectations, the Academy's careful glorification [ _ remember: the Sanin were the best of their generation because of their beginnings, hush child and forget the desertion of Tsunade, the traitor Orochimaru, the departure of Jiraiya _ ], were the most destructive forces in the equation. After all, the measure of a teacher was to create a strong team. They weren’t, no matter how strong they would be individually.)

Tensions were still high in the village, the Hyuuga Affair and the Kyuubi’s attack kept them constantly on edge, paranoid and waiting for the slightest hint of trouble. Their D-ranks consisted of ferrying paperwork across the divisions (Hideshi remembered T&I, remembered the echoes of screams—he shuddered, and wondered if their sensei had perhaps planned it,  _ if this too was a warning _ ), volunteering at the hospital (he had retched the first time he smelled the overwhelming scent of blood—there had been a team brought in, a bloody hole where there had once been an arm, they had to clean the floor; short staffed, the hospital had run down from Tsunade’s era, and there was some pervasive hint of exhaustion, some surrender to the neverending work), and working in the fields, carrying produce and tilling the fields. 

(It was all essential work; they were still building up the shinobi reserves, still attempting to project strength— _ deterrence _ , not that the policy had ever worked well for shinobi. They knew too well that even the strongest fell to luck, that one did not need direct combat—the right application of force at a precise moment could cause collapse.)

Still, there was something missing, the hyperawareness that would allow them as a team to fit as perfectly coordinated dancers. The tenseness between them had to catch on something and snap at some point.

(Teams were forged through trust—the kind that sunk in bone-deep, finding yourself shielding them without realization—they hadn’t known it then, hadn’t known how irreversible this process of shedding blood was…perhaps he wouldn’t have wished then, wouldn’t have hoped the closeness into reality.)

It was their second C-rank that both shattered and reformed their team.

C-ranks weren’t so different from D-ranks—they were still ferrying papers, the only difference being the scenery. 

C-ranks were completely different from D-ranks—the danger and paranoia of the current situation of the Fire Country bled over into heart-stopping dread if left uncheck. Outside of the walls erected by the First Hokage and his wife, overlayed with seals never once breached, there was a sense of vulnerability, of being watched. The other hidden villages had been pushing the limits and the strength of the village, and the village itself was closing off. 

Still, this close to the village, there was hardly any risk of anything happening. Bandits tended to stay away from attacking shinobi, and enemy-nin wouldn’t be seen this close to Konoha—it was not yet  _ war _ , and no one wanted to be the instigator. Still, somehow, halfway there (exactly halfway—he had come back, much later, to that disastrous mission, pinpointed it on the map and calculated the distance—twenty-eight and three-fourths kilometers from Konoha, twenty-eight and three fourths to the base—he had shivered then, some suspicion of a looming shadow, an enormous force—), they had been attacked.

A slight stiffening of Sensei’s form. That was all the warning they had.

In a space in between heartbeats, Sensei had flashed in front of them, knocking both Tsukiko and Katsuki back into where he was standing. A screeching scream of metal on metal. Then they traded blows, Shigeto-sensei and his attacker, too fast now to pinpoint, and he  _ couldn’t move. _

Shock. It was shock and killing intent. The realization came with great clarity.

(— _ remember the red haze, the glaring orange of the flames as they spread, remember the Fox, remember the terror— _ )

The air was thick and poisonous, weighing thought and movement down to increments. Even keeping his eyes open was lifting insurmountable force; each one of his muscles had locked, body warring against itself, straining desperately to move, straining desperately to  _ get away _ , to face the nukenin. Breath in short exhales, vision circling darkness; he managed to lift his head incrementally

Through the film of his spotted vision he saw Tsukiko sway, attempt to get up, fail as he had— But no. Tsukiko struggled to her knees and stood, and he wondered dimly how she could lift herself when the amount of intent in the air was  _ crippling _ . 

In another flash, the quiet was stifling, interspersed with slithering crashes, and Sensei was  _ down _ , clutching his chest, red ribbons of blood flowing freely—

And Tsukiko was  _ there _ , abruptly, rooted, as if she had always been there, and her eyes were spinning, spinning red, and somehow, Hideshi found the strength to stand again, to blink the terror out of his eyes and unlock his knees. 

Abruptly the enemy vanished, as if they weren’t worth his time—vanished, and so had their message, the papers.

Katsuki snarled from besides him; he’d also gotten up and was half-crouched, a kunai in his hand, and a shallow cut across his arm. Hideshi fixated on the languid trail of crimson painted down the tanned skin of his teammate, tracing the progress of the dark liquid making its sluggish way across canvas skin. (He missed the helpless rage in Katsuki’s eyes, in the blank stare, fixated as he was, on the figure rooted to this earth.)

But it wasn’t over. 

( _ of course. they were loose ends, weren’t they? collateral damage—it was nothing  _ personal)

Two other nin emerged from the shadows, grins slashed across their faces, and Hideshi cursed. Katsuki attacked immediately, frustration lining his form. Reckless—he thought back too the day they’d introduced themselves, saw the scowl on his teammate’s face— _ goddammit Katsuki, what are you  _ doing _?! _

Then Tsukiko moved, receiving a slash aimed at Katsuki’s unprotected back— _ there were  _ two _ , Katsuki, didn’t you account for it when you threw yourself into their arms? _ —and Hideshi was jolted into action. He waited for an opening— _ I’m trembling, how odd— _ and sprinted forward into their first defensive formation—the formation drilled into their behavior by Sensei’s relentless training. ( _ This is your place, get back to it unless you want to be killed. _ ) 

It was not clean—as far from Academy spars as one could get—every movement was filled with the desperation of the overwhelmed, strategy held no place in the brawl for survival, just reaction-action-reaction—he raised his kunai just in time to block a downward strike with the long dagger that one of his opponents held, and the impact almost drove him to his knees. But he saw another slash aimed at his ribs— _ too slow— _ and a blinding pain in his arm as he tried to ward off the killing strike. Tsukiko moved to cover him, Sharingan blazing—he wondered blearily when she had received it—and their opponent dropped, a genjutsu weaving through the air and distorting sound and balance. She stumbled, the illusion leeching her chakra reserves, and sluggishly blocked an angry blow from the other enemy-nin, who’d turned from engaging Katsuki ( _ their teammate was bleeding from his leg, his chest, and Hideshi  _ couldn’t do anything), to them as soon as he’d realized his partner had fallen. 

Hideshi was almost calm with the cold rage burning through his mind. He shunted the pain aside— _ this was more important, this was survival _ —and threw a brace of kunai—the aim off because the the awkward angle and the pain from his broken right arm ( _ thank kami he was left-handed _ )—but it was close enough—their opponent was close enough—that it didn’t matter. One of the kunai grazed Tsukiko’s shoulder and hit the man’s throat—he watched in excruciating detail as the kunai ripped through the airway and he and Tsukiko became drenched with blood.

( _ this was the image that would haunt him through all of his subsequent dreams—even after becoming desensitized to killing, the vulnerability of their team, the helplessness, the desperation would keep him jerking awake at night, sweat staining the bed _ )

His eyes slipped closed, blood loss finally rendering him unconscious. 

*I*I*

_ They were lucky.  _

(Three of Katsuki’s ribs were shattered, his leg broken, and some internal bleeding. Tsukiko had sustained light injures, a few deep cuts [one from when she had taken the blow meant for Katsuki] and severe chakra exhaustion. Hideshi had the tendons in his arm severed and the bone broken into seven parts—the nurses said that if he hadn’t unconsciously pushed chakra into the arm [burning out several tenketsu points] the sword might have amputated it from his body. Shigeto-sensei had massive internal hemorrhaging, and if the Konoha jonin team hadn’t been passing by, also exhausted after completing their mission, he might not have made it.)

_ They were still alive.  _

When they were all finally released from the hospital—Hideshi first, then Tsukiko under observation and with the firm “no training” rule, and finally Shigeto-sensei and Katsuki—when they all gathered at Training Ground 26, when Sensei said  _ I had a genin team before _ with grief-stricken, guilty eyes, Hideshi thought he finally understood. 

( _ We are your  _ team _ , Sensei. If that means loss, we will bear it; if that means despair, we will bear it; if that means instinct that can kill instead of help, that blinds logic and reality, then we will bear it. It is irreversible now, it has already been put in place. _ )

*I*I*

They fit seamlessly now—broken, but holding each other’s pieces. (And on the worst days, Hideshi would wonder bleakly if it was worth it—when his right arm ached, when he saw spinning red in his teammate’s eyes, when Katsuki’s breathing changed and became labored, but he was grateful still [were they lucky?] that they had each other.) 

A month after they’d recovered, Shigeto-sensei brought them to a weapons store. He’d told them bluntly that he was paying, his eyes dark, and Team Four let him (they recognized the look, guilt and regret—they themselves wore its too heavy burden). He allowed them to browse, but chose for them: Katsuki received a pair of crescent shaped tekko, the metal sharpened and the heavy wooden handhold having two knobs at the ends to both protect the hands and harden his strikes; Tsukiko, a jutte and a long dagger, one sided, to be used with the jutte; and Hideshi, a brace of throwing knives (different from kunai in their weight and impact) and fine wire. 

They learned to used them, and perhaps more importantly, how to fight as  _ shinobi _ —manipulating any situation and making the split-second decisions even overwhelmed by panic. Team Four grew closer, predicting each other’s movements and covering their teammates’ weaknesses. 

Shigeto-sensei still had the reticence of when they met, but something had changed between the mission and the recovery period. Training was filled these days with combat exercises that exploited their weakness in covering each other, in their formation, in their inflexibility. No longer was Sensei focusing on fixed positions but was concentrating on where they would clash against each other, where they wouldn’t observe danger. 

So here they were, a week before the Chuunin Exams, in Training Ground 18.

Dark eyes fixated on the target (unwavering, showing nothing of intention _ —never betray your hand no matter how obvious the attack _ ) as he rushed in, low to the ground, teeth showing in a snarl. Katsuki was finding his place in hand-to-hand, the blunt force that barreled through enemies. First to attack, a headlong drive that was tempered by the too-close understanding of his own drawbacks and blind spots. Sliding underneath a blow he’d once have barrelled into, he shoved his right arm into the ground, flooding the immediate vicinity with his chakra, softening the earth around his opponent (not formal ninjutsu, but blunt force manipulation, taking advantage of the lack of hand signs to incorporate his chakra nature into the fight), quicksand, before leaping into the air, left hand curling tighter around his tekko.

Their opponent paused, shaking off the two-layered genjutsu that had settled almost unnoticeably on him, just in time to deflect Katsuki’s fist, metal glinting from his knuckles with a held kunai and to dodge Tsukiko’s jutte and follow-up, but was prevented from pressing his advantage by the throwing knives that separated him from the other two and curled around, guided by almost invisible wires that had been dulled to prevent their detection. 

Hideshi prefered to stay back from a fight—their strategist. The knives returned to his hands as Katsuki and Tsukiko drew back. This time, before they could launch themselves again, several thin ribbons of water snaked abruptly towards them turning to sharp edges just before impact. Hideshi threw a kunai, breaking through one of them, but it just reformed around the intrusion. He gave a short whistle and the three scattered, Tsukiko and Hideshi almost vanishing into the nearby branches, chakras kept low and inert, while Katsuki burned chakra broadcasting his presence. 

The tendrils of water all focused on Katsuki who was slowly retreating under the assault, but after a moment of preparation, the hum of chakra threaded metal sliced through the jutsu, the infused chakra clashing and disrupting the water. With the water gone, Katsuki bared his teeth as their opponent barrelled into him, meeting a kunai with his tekko and dropping into the earth, while Hideshi kept up the distraction, this time with the serrated knives (coated in a light common paralytic—he’d gone to one of their former Yamanaka classmates and traded) that aimed for any bit of bare skin, mainly the face and forearms.

The opponent stumbled, almost immediately regaining his balance, but Hideshi smirked as Tsukiko, without making herself known, cast genjutsu after genjutsu. Tsukiko was a close to mid-range fighter—while her taijutsu grew and evolved with her jutte as her reach lengthened, but with her Sharingan, she wasn’t limited to a few styles of fighting, and with a hard-hitter on the team already, he worked better from the shadow of Katsuki’s initial attacks. Her strength was in uncertainty—switching between offensive and defensive moves, at once graceful and jarring, she was unpredictable, never letting a fight fall into a rhythm that let her opponents relax. 

Their opponent stumbled again, this time more visibly, and Hideshi frowned in the split second when Katsuki’s arms reached out from the ground to grasp the ankles of their opponent, and Tsukiko finally rushed back into visibility. 

He wouldn’t have time to warn them.

Shunshin.

As their opponent managed to kick Katsuki’s grasping hands hard enough that they flinched back, the boy himself sinking further into the earth as he lost some control of the jutsu hardening the loose earth he’d just tunneled through, and as their opponent, with none of the surprise he  _ should  _ have shown anticipated Tsukiko and punched her in the stomach hard enough to hit the nearest tree, Hideshi flickered and put his kunai up to their opponent’s throat as he felt the same to his own.

They all paused in absolute stillness.

Then Shigeto-sensei relaxed. 

“Match over.”

Hideshi pulled back his kunai, and Katsuki gingerly crawled out of the earth pit, while Tsukiko lay were she was for a few more seconds before groaning as she walked over to them.

“Better.” And at that Team Four all grinned.

They had their weaknesses, of course. But they  _ knew  _ them, and they were a  _ team _ . While they couldn’t hold their own against a jonin individually, together they could at least deter them long enough to escape with little to no heavy injuries, and depending on the skill level of the jonin, they could subdue them. (They still couldn’t beat Shigeto-sensei, but they were getting better at evading his more devastating attacks.)

Team Four took their Chuunin Exams in Kusa. They were promoted after reaching the second tier of the third part of the Exams.

(Sensei looked grim as he told them— _ be careful, be wary, you are now responsible for your wellbeing, for not letting them break you, for protecting each other,  _ do not die—and they understood it was not an honor, but a burden they were willing to bear for their village.)

*I*I*

In the mornings, Luna liked to look up at her ceiling and remember a one similar to it that existed in a different dimension. There it had been Ginny, Hermione, Ron, Neville, and Harry and  _ friends  _ repeated through golden chains. Here, in a violent world where peace was fleeting and bonds were forged of blood,  _ kazoku _ held the portraits together. Centered were pictures of her parents and her brothers, Sasuke’s newly added as his face gained definition and character. Shisui was a little further off, but still close. To their right was Minato ( _ tell them _ ) and Kushina, bright yellow and red intertwining, and connected to them was Hatake Kakashi, who was only lightly sketched, only a ghost yet. Below her family, her team, Shigeto-sensei, eyes shadowed and sad, but never defeated; Hideshi, the Eadocha on his shoulder; Katsuki, scowl on his face but eyes bright and fond. 

Often, in the mornings, Luna let tears slip down her face. Tears were important (mum had always told her she was allowed to cry, as long as she also remembered to smile) and when the memories made her feel very sad, she reminded herself that it was alright to be sad and to cry.

(Perhaps Fugaku has once paused before his daughter’s door, heard the quiet sniffles, heard the sorrow [ _ child, sorrow is dangerous _ ] and had continued, heart twisting ever so slightly more, but it had been too long since that first breaking, and there was only numbness that burned off [ _ that stayed _ ] by the next morning.)

*I*I*

_ “Could you tell him we loved him?” _

There were shadows that prevented her from approaching the young sun. Luna frowned at the guards, at the gentle deterrence and redirection. Well, if  _ she _ couldn’t get close to him, she’d find someone who could. 

He was only almost five now, any note left for him would be vetted and taken away, and he probably couldn’t read anyway. Better to find someone who was trustworthy who could pass along the message. Better to find someone who wouldn’t be watched as she was watched. So Luna observed, flashes of bright blond, movements in the corner of her eyes—the guards did not notice her when she didn’t approach directly. 

A few months after she’d begun her subtle observation, she had picked out the ramen stand. 

“Would you like to have dinner together?”

It was after a training session—they still occasionally met with Shigeto-sensei though their team had been split, Sensei going back to solo A-ranks and Team Four taking on harder and harder missions. (They met to show each other that they were alive, that they were  _ well. _ )

Hideshi looked at her, curious, but Katsuki grinned and agreed immediately. They followed her as she brought them around to Ichiraku Ramen. 

Katsuki snickered when he saw the name. “Kiko, I didn’t know you held ramen in such  _ high _ regard.”

“I don’t. This is my first time here.”

“Then why did you choose this place?”

“The Heliopaths were congregating there.”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course.”

They ducked inside and ordered, Katsuki instantly inhaling the noodles, a quick  _ itadakimasu _ dropping from his lips. Hideshi looked around, still curious and assessing, before his own  _ itadakimasu  _ sounded and he dug in. Luna beamed at the cook, who hadn’t looked at her with suspicious eyes (how odd, he didn’t seem to be infested with Wrackspurts like the rest of Konoha. Nasty things, Wrackspurts.) He seemed eminently trustworthy. 

Hideshi noticed her interest in the owner and leaned over. “I don’t suppose this has anything to do with the blond pariah that you’ve been keeping an eye on?”

Luna took a sip of her soup, her widening smile the only indication of her answer.

A sigh. “Be careful, will you? He holds the interest of the Council.” (Hideshi had  _ seen  _ the ANBU intervene more than once when a drunken civilian had expressed hostility. He didn’t have much of an opinion of the Kyuubi’s container, just a general wariness at the power the small blond contained, but the ANBU were another thing altogether. ANBU meant that someone  _ important _ was involved, and it was best to steer clear of  _ any _ sort of interest from those in charge of a Hidden Village. A good shinobi stayed unnoticed.)

“I will.” Luna sobered, eyes pained and remembering. 

“Hey! This is actually really good!”

Their loud teammate had already finished his bowl and was ordering more. Hideshi raised an eyebrow at Luna. She smiled ruefully. “I did say I’d pay.”

Katsuki whooped.

*I*I*

Later in the day, when a small boy dressed in eye-blinding orange burst into the ramen stand and ordered what he always ordered, Teuchi leaned forward over the counter and whispered a secret to the boy.

_ “Naruto, I was told to pass along a message to you.” _

_ “Really?! What is it?” _

_ “It’s a secret—are you sure that you will be able to keep it?” _

_ “Uh-huh!” _

_ “Okay, this person asked me to not tell you who they were, but they wanted you to know that your parents loved you.” _

*I*I*

(Sometimes, Luna choked on the swirling desolation in the Compound.)

Her brother smiled less and less now. He no longer had time for spars or training—he had been accepted into the grey ranks and Luna felt dread as he faded from her life (the same panic that she’d felt in another lifetime, but this time prolonged, sometimes she looked at him and all she could see was blinding white and the distant horn). Sasuke had felt it too, and he learned to stop asking after Itachi, because even when he was at home, he was exhausted. 

Instead her younger brother turned to her. Which, in turn, led to his introduction to her team.

“Oi, who’s the brat?”

“Hmmm?” Luna looked up from her sketchbook and stared at Katsuki a bit too long to be comfortable. It was one of those slow days, and they were just wandering around Konoha after a brief training session. (She was spending more and more time outside her [House] [Clan], she was drawn away and away and maybe it wasn’t fate and maybe it was something like fear.) “Oh, that’s my brother.”

“Why’s he following us?”

Luna blinked and turned back to her sketchbook. Sasuke moved a half-step closer to his sister and scowled at the older boy.

“Hey! Tsukiko, answer me!”

Hideshi sighed, snapping a thick text on economic principles shut. “Katsuki, give it a rest. Sasuke isn’t bothering us. Go find something to do if you’re so bored.”

“How do you know his name?”

“I’ve met him before.”

Katsuki crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the five year old, who promptly glared back. 

“How am I the only one who doesn’t know your family?”

Hideshi looked up from putting his book into his bag, apparently giving up on reading. “It’s because you never visit her home.”

“She’s never invited me!”

“She’s never invited me either.”

Katsuki threw up his hands in exasperation. “I’m surrounded by socially-inept idiots who think that they’re  _ fine! _ ”

“Don’t call Nee-san an idiot! You’re an idiot!”

Luna looked at Katsuki very sternly. “Yes, that wasn’t very nice.”

Katsuki let out a muffled scream.

In time, Team Four became accustomed to Sasuke’s presence (or rather, Katsuki did; the others had already been fine with it) and in between missions, they fell into the comfortable routine of familiarity, interspersed with bickering between Katsuki and Sasuke. (Hideshi sighed as they began arguing for the third time that day. “Honestly, Katsuki, are  _ you  _ five?”) It was, if not a good time, at least a relaxing one. (“Katsuki?” “What?” “Did you give my brother a pike?” “...pike? What pike?”  _ crash _ “That pike.” “Actually...I just...forgot...that I need to...gotta go!”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the Academy—I have no idea how the Rookie Nine’s team structures were chosen, but I took the artistic liberty of putting Luna’s team together based on initial skill sets and Academy compatibility. While one can’t precisely determine how a student will do in the field or what their strengths will be, it makes sense to create well-rounded teams who can work with each other. So Hideshi, who showed promise in projectile weapons, Katsuki, who was clearly taijutsu oriented, and Luna with the Sharingan-enhanced genjutsu would be able to balance each other out and be compatible for a wide range of missions. In addition, none of their personalities directly clash—sure, Katsuki’s abrasive, but Hideshi’s quiet, and Luna on principle doesn’t hate anybody. I’m also assuming that after the Kyuubi’s attack, since these interludes are in the few years after that event, there was a lack of shinobi in the field and so teams that could do generally well with any task were more in demand than specialist teams (like the Ino-Shika-Cho triad) because Konoha simply doesn’t have the manpower to allow a team to only take certain missions.
> 
> Also who the hell decides the age of “adulthood” in this universe? What the hell does “adulthood” even mean? Does it mean you can be tried for the crimes of an adult? I mean, clearly, because nukenin, but— I mean, we already know that the shinobi system is fucked up but goddamn.


	11. tragedy without catharsis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by Valgeir Sigurðsson's music, particularly "No Nights Dark Enough" and "Architecture of Loss" which also work as a soundtrack of sorts for this chapter. (Please check his music out; it's amazing and eerily beautiful.)
> 
> By now you should know my writing style, but as extra warning, just in case: 
> 
> This chapter contains violent imagery, mindfuckery, and oblique mentions of suicide. If you want to skip the mentions of suicide, stop reading after /(it was all he could do—he was fading)/ and skip the addendum. I will add a brief summary of those parts at the end.

Luna felt a growing sense of disquiet as they drew closer to Konoha. 

_Something was wrong, terribly wrong, and she was far too late._

It was the same dread that she had felt as the Fox had broken loose; the same dread that summoned both her and Harry; the same dread that meant that Fate itself had changed and mutated into something horrific. Her magic roiled inside of her, fighting to expand and break loose and wreak havoc on this unease, on this _wrongness_ , and a wave of nausea slammed into her—

(  The mission itself had been a fairly easy one—low B-rank, a couple of nuke-nin [estimated at high genin experience, but intel on nukenin was _always_ sketchy] had been terrorizing a local village. They’d gotten desperate and arrogant, which was never a good thing, and her team had been sent to deal with the problem. They’d finished earlier than expected by about a week; immediately when they arrived one of the shinobi-turned-bandits had panicked at the sight of a Konoha team, slipped up and confessed. Her team had been able to ambush them and turn them over to the samurai without much trouble. They’d opted to go back to Konoha immediately instead of using the rest of their mission time to relax in the small village.  )

It was late evening, quiet and expectant. It had rained earlier and now, as the sun threw out its last light before it sank, the rays found there way to the droplets left behind, creating a soft amber glow amidst the deepening shadows. The air was damp but not heavy, a hint of autumn in the wind. They had decided to press on instead of making camp (because while it was still warm, the residual heat from the sun would dissipate by nightfall and then the wet ground would be absolutely miserable; they were quite close to Konoha and in familiar woods anyway.) It should have been calming, returning home. It should have felt _safe_.

All she felt was dread. 

Luna paused, fingers digging into the branch of the tree, rough bark scraping the skin not covered by the gloves, and tried not to fall, tried not to throw up as a wave of magic ( _wrongwrongwrongWRONG_ ) tore into her chakra, causing her control to fluctuate. The rest of her team stopped abruptly.

Hideshi looked back worriedly. “Are you alright?”

“No,” she breathed. “There’s something _wrong—“_

Her grip tightened, frustration lacing her words—

Katsuki immediately started checking her over for injuries or symptoms of illness, but Hideshi began questioning her. (There had been other times when Tsukiko’s breathing had changed—never enough for the others or even Tsukiko herself to notice, but since _that_ mission, he’d been hyperaware of both his teammates—and every time it had been before something unexpected, something that could have derailed the mission, something that could have _killed_ them. Shinobi’s intuition and paranoia was a terrible thing.)

“Not here?” His eyes were already scanning the area, looking for anything out of place.

“Konoha.”

It was almost gasped out and Katsuki, catching her wrist, looked up to Hideshi. “Her pulse is fast, it’s too fast—“

Hideshi glanced at him before turning back to Luna, and somehow only her two teammates seemed stable, everything fading, flickering, white spot in her vision.

“We need to hurry.” Hideshi’s voice was almost clinical, pragmatic, giving her a line that she clung to, something to do, something that could push the dread back. She slipped her hand out of Katsuki’s.

_“Yes.”_

Luna hauled herself to her feet, and they set off, and after a moment, their other teammate followed. 

“Wait, what _was_ that?” Katsuki panted out, catching up to their flight, wariness lurking in the corners of his eyes. (His teammates had always been able to comprehend the other better—even back at the Academy, Hideshi had tolerated Tsukiko’s strangeness when others drew away. They still worked together near perfectly as a team, but the other two somehow fit together instinctually, anticipating the other’s actions and complimenting them, understanding intentions without being told. Sometimes he felt a twinge of jealousy, but then they were both so _odd_ that he couldn’t really begrudge them that.)

Hideshi shrugged, his voice quiet. “Intuition? Instinct? Bloodline?” His tone turned more serious. “But it’s bad, I’ve _never_ seen Kiko this worried. About _anything_.” Luna heard him through a muted wall of fear, she was already speeding ahead…

(They observed their distracted, slowly panicking teammate and increased their pace. 

They trusted her; trust built on years of working together, years of honing each other till they all fit perfectly, interlocking and familiar. If she said that something was wrong, _it was._ )

Luna wasn’t breathing correctly anymore: deep inhales had turned strangled and she was burning through more energy than she could afford, her magic on the verge of overflowing through the tight hold that she kept on it (this was not a world kind to her brand of foreign energy, this was not a kind world, this was not _her_ world)—she was growing desperate without knowing why, and it _scared_ her.

They arrived in a few hours of tense silence 

Her team touched down at the gate, and Izumo and Kotetsu nodded at her, but her eyes skipped to the gate, to the trees—every detail in her surroundings seemed to spark with ever-increasing, _frightening_ intensity. As they sped through the streets to the Administration Building, Luna sped up, faster and faster (Hideshi and Katsuki shot each other a look before racing after her). They burst into the building drawing glances and alarm, but she couldn’t think, couldn’t _slow down, terror in her bones—_

They debriefed, and Luna felt her fear growing.

(Katuski had taken over the debriefing, worry in his eyes as he glanced at Tsukiko and her trembling. His sentences came out short, jumbled almost, the papers were shoved hurriedly to the chuunin at the desk who looked almost bored—what right did he have to be bored when their teammate was—)

_Something was wrong. So wrong that it could split her world in two._

They had barely left the Administration Building before Luna sprinted off in the direction of the Compound, so quickly that Hideshi and Katsuki couldn’t keep her in sight. When she rounded the corner, her magic reached the boiling point and exploded from the pressure of her panic.

She needed to go–

_Where?_

It didn’t matter, she was _needed_. 

With a sound akin to a silenced gun, she disappeared. 

Luna landed in front of the the entrance to the Compound, and suddenly stopped. The pounding in her head wouldn’t cease, and she was swaying on her feet. She choked on her breath, couldn’t breathe, _couldn’t breathe_. 

She was underwater, the deep blues of the bottom of the ocean surrounding her, and she was floating, sinking; something dragged her down, her arms, her legs restrained but she was struggling to keep her head above drowning, but the surface was too far to reach, and time had caught her actions in amber. _Too much water, too much heat, too much toomuchtoomuCH._

(Magic flooding through her bones, sparking and erratic, burning, burning, _burning._ )

She took a step forward. All her energy had left her despite the magic waging havoc in her veins, and she almost expected the blood that stained the ground, that was everywhere, except she _hadn’t_ and shock slammed into her with all the force of that train in the white station and her vision flickered. Her eyes glassed over and everything suddenly seemed too far away, a black shroud covering her face, her arms, taking her a step away from reality, no energy, no emotion, the white walls too blank— 

Then she was running, tearing away from the veil, from the unreality, her passage leaving wet footprints that reflected cold moonlight, running without sound, without seeing the carnage, her eyes hyperfocused, _see the splatter on the wall, already drying at the edges, thickening, you are too late, do your duty,_ and bleeding red. 

( _too much red, too much blood, don’t stop, don’t think, don’t stay,_ you are still needed)

Her footsteps made no sound. But they should have, they should have made the earth tremble as she trembled, ( _she was a ghost not meant to be in this world, she was not meant to change, she was—_ ). The hard packed dirt on the ground was softened by the blood, no there was no blood, only the hard metallic tang of a battlefield; there were no bodies, there were only bodies, they weren’t real, _she wasn’t real._

(stay awake)

Murmurs, she slipped in through the door to the hiss of a sword sliding out of its sheath and cutting through the air—she arrived just as the blood spurted out from the fatal wounds on her parents. 

( _A part of her watched dispassionate, this was meant to be, this was choice and destiny and the way of the world and she was here only as an observer. A part of her watched dispassionate, and the dread of that lack of dread flooded her bones._ )

(her father—his quiet approval, his bitterness, his _love_ , his arms around her, and then his hand on her shoulder, warm and with a certain strength from his pride— _her father_ , eyes onyx black, not red, not red, not insane, not angry or accusing _as he knelt_ — _why? this is betrayal—_ falling falling _falling_ )

( _A part of her raised her hand, elderwood humming in her palm._ )

(her mother—her quiet voice, her gentleness, her sorrow, her gaze on her daughter as she painted, her cooking and the love tinged with a deep loss as she called her _musume_ — _her mother,_ eyes onyx black, not red, not red, she’d left combat for a slow death and she _smiled_ _as she_ _fell_ )

( _A part of her reached towards them and then completely though, as if flesh was of a different world._ )

And their killer looked up in shock.

She was falling again. Falling, falling, as her (as _their_ ) parents had; she trembled and began to tilt backwards. Itachi was by her side in a flash, catching her, their parents’ blood staining her clothes, iron seeping through to paint her skin as he held her close. Her body had gone limp, and she couldn’t move. 

_The magic has quieted, driven back by shock, by the silence, the sudden cessation of uncertainty._

Itachi’s voice was quiet, belying the anguish carefully hidden in his eyes, but his tears were falling and he couldn’t stop them. (he had been ready for anything but this) “You weren’t supposed to be back.” 

“ _Why?_ ” Her voice came out hoarse, as if she had been screaming. 

( _Why had they accepted this death? Why had he—)_

He immediately closed off. His expression shuttered, and his arms tightened around her.

“Kiko-chan… I’m so sorry.” There was a despair in the tone _—((do not forgive me—you will never look at me in the same way, I can no longer be your brother, and you can no longer hold my hand or give your smile to me—times are changing and I can no longer be here for you so you must hate me, but if you do, I might shatter. I_ have _shattered.))_

_((Why couldn’t he lie?))_

One of his hands found its way to her neck, and he pushed chakra through the nerve cluster. 

 _((he was breaking, splintering into irreparable parts, the words of his parents ringing in his ears,_ I’m proud of you _, but why? kinslayer, cursed to walk the world with sin-touched hands. surely, anything was better than this gnawing ache in his chest, anything would be better than the blood on his hands, the blood now on his sister.))_

Her body immediately slumped, and he gently laid her down. (Magic built up, crescendoing, the body too fragile to keep it back for long.) And then footsteps, and Sasuke burst into the room. 

_(he was shattering.)_

“Aniki?” His voice wavered, and Itachi almost faltered then and there. 

_Not now—_

_Not again—_

His mind shut down from the horror.

_—both of his siblings—he was what he feared, all the cruelty of what he strove to reject—gentle, his father called him, but he was a monster—patricide—murderer—the worst kind of stain on humanity. Why had it been left to him? Why did he succeed? Why had he not failed? Surely, anything would have been better than this utter solitude, his rejection of his own family, their rejection of him, orchestrated by a stranger, by himself—surely if there was any good left in the world, it would have intervened before he’d committed such a horrific act._

_Why was he_ so good _at killing?_

He turned ( _blood on his hands, blood on his face, crimson stains_ ) blank, emotionless, and pinned his brother ( _aniki! play with me—forgive me, Sasuke_ ) with his red eyes, and Sasuke slumped. And Itachi endured the torture of once again killing his family over and over _and over…_

( _He let go too early, couldn’t bear to relive it another time, stopped and he knew it was too soon, that his brother would regain consciousness—_ )

And he watched his heart break as Sasuke ran after him, still asking in that broken voice, still clearly in a state of shock and despair. He turned to him, his face cold, forbidding, pleading _please be scared, please don’t ask anything more of me._

_I’m not sure I have anything left to give—_

And a shape came flying, with all the grace of a panther (magic crackled, finally breaching skin), out of the door pushing Sasuke back, snarling to their brother to run, to _get away._

And Sasuke ran.

_(he was glad.)_

His sister turned to him with a solemn, almost fierce, look on her face, the one he had promised himself she would never wear again ( _his heart was bleeding, dying, broken and his mind was slowly splintering—he remembered broken sobs in darkness after complete destruction and despair_ ) and she was crying. 

They moved, both Sharingans flaring, danced and fought, the deadly beauty of combat never diminished. They still fit together, completing each other, though they had both irrevocably changed in those few moments. His tanto caught in her jutte, twist, disengage, separate, clash again. ( _There was a part of him that was desperately glad of her choice of weapon, because even if he would ever be bloodstained, Sasuke would have a defender._ ) And Itachi grieved, pouring out his sadness to her, and she understood, perhaps, (but didn’t, because how could she?) and he was drowning, but she was there and somehow he wasn’t completely broken, not just yet. 

( _he couldn’t break, not just yet_ )

And Luna stopped crying, because this was not the time for tears, because every movement was too easy and too hard all at once (she was moving through amber time), because she had seen her parents fall, seen her brother shatter. (and now they were _here_ , opposing each other—perhaps she had _begun_ crying to stave off insanity, its devouring hunger—perhaps she _stopped_ to withstand the breaking, because the other course was to slip into terrifying darkness, to continue weeping and never cease— _why had her (their) parents accepted this betrayal? why had they accepted leaving?_ ) Because this was Itachi, the one who had been there for her since the beginning of _this_ time, the one whom she had pieced together, the one who had threaded her whole, because they were both broken and because they both desperately needed each other. 

(and perhaps she understood that crushing despair, perhaps she had seen it before, on a train station bleached white and a too-vivid green, in a boy with too-tied eyes and the objects of Death—)

(perhaps she understood impossible responsibilities and the manipulations of shadow players—)

(perhaps she had stopped her tears and poured the intensity of herself into every attack because she did not want to consider this heartbreak ( _she had loved him, she still loved him, but this irreversible severance had left them on opposite sides, had left her without pieces so integral to herself that she stumbled in a daze of pain—his hands were bloodstained, but weren’t they all?_ ) perhaps she stopped in order to fend off overwhelming sadness, perhaps—)

Every blow was defined in a sharp clarity, every action expected and countered and recountered before the body did more than tense. Movement threaded through reality and dream, only half tangible, contact was a feather-breath and reverberated, creating earthquakes. 

(It was not that she was anywhere near his level of skill, but she _knew_ him. And that made all the difference.)

And then they both stopped as blade met its counter and held in stasis. Red on red they finally looked into each other’s eyes, _no more avoidance, no more fear_ , and Luna ( _Kiko-chan, I think that I have lost myself_ ) stepped forward and embraced him. ( _She still loved him—this is_ betrayal— _why had they knelt in front of death?—she_ still loved him)

(Magic roared with all its repressed intensity, a hurricane with the siblings centered.)

And Itachi clung to her, because she was his lifeline (because he was still a child, because she was _there_ ).

And then he lifted up her head, and she let him because she knew what he was doing ( _she still trusted him, because somehow, horrifyingly, he was still the same brother how had comforted her after the Fox, the same brother who had held her as she wept, how could she but trust him_ ), and he caught her in the Tsukiyomi.

 _There were years and they_ lived _. Perhaps imagine a world at peace—imagine the Fourth and his promise to Konoha—imagine the end to bitterness, imagine celebration—imagine a world they’d always dreamed of, years and years. They grew old together, they laughed, and it was no longer tainted by the acrid scent of desperation. It would be her last gift to her brother._

_On the top of the Hokage Monument, she embraced him and whispered the an ending to their story._

And Itachi ended it gently, laying her down on the ground, her last words ringing in his ears, and he felt lightened, no longer quite so broken. ( _she could do this one last thing for him before they became enemies_ )

And when he fled, he found the courage to live. 

*I*I*

Sasuke was running.

He felt a hot burst of guilt in his chest, guilt restricting his breathing, guilt at the relief that someone else was handling it, guilt at running away and not staying to help, running away and leaving his sister with— _his brother, it could not be true, could not, could not_ , because it was Itachi, and he’d thought (known with absolute certainty) that he’d known him. (But hadn’t his brother also gotten colder? But hadn’t it been weeks between interactions that didn’t end up as avoidance and half-moments?)

— _cold cold cold eyes, murderer, blood splattering from the tanto—_

He ran blindly out of the compound, looking for help, anybody, hysteria twisted time, _how long had he been running?,_ and abruptly slammed into someone.

“Maa, kid, look where you’re going.” There was a man in a mask with spiky silver hair. Sasuke felt a measure of relief, ANBU were the elites—and then he remembered that Itachi was also a ANBU operative. ( _but he couldn’t think about that, he_ couldn’t _—nee-san was fighting for him, he had to find help—had looked dead, so so cold and empty and_ frightening)

Sasuke looked up, tear stained face, and the ANBU stiffened minutely. 

“You have to help! Nee-san is fighting—” he faltered, he couldn’t say the words, that would make so very real. “He killed F-father and M-mother!”

“Where?” The word was spoken sharply, professionally, the laziness suddenly vanishing from the tall frame.

Sasuke pointed back the way he came.

“Uchiha Compound,” he choked out, almost a whisper.

The man flared his chakra and vanished in a swirl of leaves. And Sasuke collapsed–the last thing he saw were more ANBU appearing around him.

*I*I*

Kakashi arrived at the Compound silently, entering as a ghost—the only living thing in a cemetery, and he felt sick. It was not the stench of blood ( _and how horrifying that he normalized such horrors that it did not phase him_ ) it was the silence, the eerie stillness; only crimson moved in slow trails down the streets, staining—

( _he remembered life, he remembered the people filling the Compound with noise, this was  — people, this was — place, why was he failing — again?_ )

But there was no time (he couldn’t scent anything but the overwhelming iron, even through his mask), and he blurred, searching— _“Nee-san is fighting”—_ perhaps he could stop this slaughter, perhaps there was someone left—

 _There_ . A shadow vanished over the wall— _No! Too late again, never fast enough, never strong enough_ — _who are they that they have the speed to escape my (his) eyes?—_ but there was a girl, falling, falling— _the brief flash of lightning_ —he wouldn’t make it in time— _quiet surprise_ —StOp.

And suddenly he was there, the girl in his arms— _when had he moved? why had he felt such terror that she fell?—_ unconscious, faintly breathing—he grasped her wrist to feel the heartbeat, to assure himself that she was still _there_ —he looked down—

It was her. Five years had passed—

(He had been sure that it had been a dream.)

—he was _afraid_.

*I*I*

Itachi ran to the Hokage. 

(they were dogs of war, bred for a sole purpose, and they served a single master)

(sometimes, fleetingly, he resented the bonds that held him to this place, to this leader, too old, too cruel, too tired—sometimes the bonds were all that kept him alive)

(he felt half-alive, some terrible beast called out from the sins of humanity to enact the final horror; he felt numb, what could ever touch him again, there was no one, they were all fading, the bonds he made all broken, _betrayer—_ )

( _Kiko-chan, I think I’ve lost myself—I can’t see the fireflies anymore_ )

Once there he begged, because he couldn’t see anyone else die, or he would shatter, he would break, he’d become the monster that people would think he was after this night. 

( _he already had_ )

_Please, please take care of them._

Once there he threatened, crippled his distress, appeared as the nukenin he would soon be (it wasn’t him—it made it easier, appearing as a murder of crows cloaked in illusion); once there he warned the coming of a fury great enough to start and end a war if his demands weren’t met; once there he realized that his trust, his blind loyalty had already broken (but don’t think about the implications, don’t think of the bodies left behind without proper burial, _don’t think_ ). He stood in front of a man to whom he’d pledge unwavering and found the earth roiling, dislodging the balance that he’d maintained; he stood in front of a man who seemed so very old and tired and no longer had faith in the trust that was once unquestioning.

_You forget that I was ANBU Captain in my own right, that I know too many secrets for you to remain comfortable in my loyalty._

*I*I*

Sometimes ( _most days_ ), Sarutobi Hiruzen wished that he had died in the Kyuubi’s attack. He had chosen his successor with care, but Minato had died, and there was no one else he could trust Konoha to. The title lay heavy across his shoulders—this was an office that wore men down, that brought out the vicious pragmatism they were all disgusted by. 

“Report.”

The ANBU operative stepped up. 

“Preliminary investigation shows that Itachi Uchiha was responsible for the murder of his parents, however reports of the other bodies suggest that there may have been an accomplice. Who that accomplice might be, if he even exists, is unclear. The bodies have been burned according to your orders.”

The Hokage looked at him sharply. He had never given that order. 

 _Danzo_ , he gritted his teeth, _covering all your bases now, aren’t you?_

Dismissing the ANBU he began the heavy work of curtailing an arrogance that he should have eliminated a long time ago.

*I*I*

The forest was too quiet, the damp of the earlier rain and the darkness muffling the too vivid impressions of the day. Kakashi’s mask was down, the humidity making it difficult for him to breathe through the scent suppression on the mask. 

(He’d torn himself from the girl when reinforcements arrived [there was dread that he’d never look away again, that he had been left rooted to that spot of the tragedy, splintered into the moment of seeing her fall], focusing instead on the scent of the shadow, too familiar, too _easy_ : clear even in the moisture laden forest, and Kakashi dreaded the meeting. _He_ wasn’t even trying to conceal his scent, a taunt, and he wanted to howl.)

The shadow stopped, turned, and a glint of red flashed in the dark forest.

“Kakashi-senpai.”

Kakashi mentally flinched at the name, at the voice, _he knew him,_ and his eyes tightened for a second at the reminder that Itachi had been under his care. (Always too solemn, too calm, as if he had been born into ANBU, into the severity of shinobi life.) And that he had failed another teammate. 

( _How could he be so stable? He had just massacred his clan [his_ pack _]._

_How could he have missed the signs of a broken mind?_

_How could he have missed the spiral into insanity?_ )

He had no answers, only shoved up his headband, exposing the Sharingan. Because whatever reasons Itachi had for the mass murder ( _of his own kinsmen_ ), there was only one certainty, and that was that he had cast away all loyalty to Konoha through that act and the subsequent flight.

In the same moment both shinobi sprung into action. There was no preamble, just the sudden movement.

(( _act out the play, you are kin-slayer, but this is not an act, this is truth, must I reveal the monster that I am afraid that I’ve become—senpai—please don’t believe me,_ you have to believe me))

(If Itachi’s fight with Kiko-chan had been a dance, his fight with Kakashi-senpai was a storm, a clash between two desperate force. The air was filled with anger and broken confusion, chaos and bitter guilt. It was discordant, jarring, and the ground shook with every strike. If every move with Tsukiko had been deflection, their weapons fitting together in an almost terrifying symmetry of offense and defense, then every move in his fight against the last Hatake was a kill strike [ _forget that there very well might be fatalities, that the list of crimes might grow_ ]. Grief and guilt weighed his opponent down, and Itachi _knew him_ , knew how to break the man further in his too familiar movements, and the flaunting of that loss he’d been powerless to stop.)

There was no gentleness, to resolution. 

Sharingan met Sharingan and the world burned. Jutsus half finished, half abandoned, metal screeching, hasty hand seals forever vying for an advantage, predictions and disruptions, and then it was over. 

One mistake, one slip, one look into the bleeding red eyes the Uchiha. (Kakashi had never predicted that he would fight an Uchiha—they were _Konoha_ , they were _teammates—_ he’d never prepared for this situation, _he who had always prepared for any situation_ —)

Itachi held it for two seconds, he didn’t have _time_ , he needed to get away before the reinforcements caught up. ( _his eyes were a curse, again and again, how many times had he shattered his soul for the fire that held it in thrall_ ) Kakashi would only be unconscious for a few hours. 

But that was all he needed. 

( _it was all he could do—he was fading_ )

*I*I*

( _His hand, sheathed in his own creation, his_ first _creation, sheathed in crimson warmth, look up in horror, the face kept changing, and the purple markings and brown switched with alarming abruptness to black unruly hair and crimson eyes, and his own socket_ burned _, his hand gripped too tight on his father’s tanto, tracing carefully left to right, then from his sternum down and seeing the warm red rush over his hand is [satisfaction] [terror], he shouldn’t have gone after Itachi, he knew too much of him._ )

“Senpai?”

Tenzo’s voice, the blurry shapes were beginning to become clear. Worry and relief was stark on his subordinate’s face, for once without the mask. Kakashi opened his eyes, the hitch in his breathing too noticeable, the lingering stabbing pains in his head an almost-welcome distraction from the onrush of memories.

“Where… is Itachi?”

But he already knew the answer, knew the answer from the moment that he’d come back to consciousness and seen Tenzo.

“He got away.”

“Aa…“

All at once Kakashi felt terribly tired. Maybe he shouldn’t have woken up this morning… 

“Senpai? Senpai?! Don’t fall asleep on me–”

And sweet unconsciousness took him.

* * *

_addendum: Itachi’s flight_

* * *

And he was running. (He was always running these days, running on fumes that would soon disperse and leave him empty.) The Hashirama trees seemed accusing, shadows menacing in their hostility—

_(Before the calamity, who were we?)_

This is the beginning:

Wide eyes and a slight wonder at the delicate frailty, touch feather soft, hesitant, on new life. Itachi fell when she looked at him with strange strange eyes (eyes that were not Uchiha but beautiful and terrible all the same). He fell at her first laugh, at her smile— _Imouto_ , he thinks, and it is a promise in his mind—

_(Why do you weep, small soldier, for those passed?)_

This is the beginning:

Blood and the stench of iron in the air, the cries of the dying and the cloying scent of desperation (despair)— _where was he and why was he there?—what was happening?_ —and a kunai flew too close and stiched a thin thread of blood on his cheek. 

Then warm warm (ever cold) arms and the apologies in his ears.

(The words fade, crumble to dust and become insubstantial—his nightmares tend more prominent in his mind, and there are days he wakes up grasping for a life, perhaps, or a light long gone—and this too is a promise…)

He doesn't forget the sightless eyes, doesn't forget how they looked at him asking _why?,_ doesn't forget the feeling of cold, sticky crimson clawing up his leg. But then he saw his moon and _her_ eyes, and there was a dissonance between this transient reality and that too vivid memory, but he thought that perhaps he could breathe again without scenting iron—

_(Why do you ask, lost child, without expectance?)_

This is the beginning:

There were ranks upon ranks of black clad shinobi, bowed heads and grimness defining their bodies, and he stood alone, looking up instead of down, as the Fourth spoke of sacrifice and war, of a dreaded glory and devotion, but he could only remember sightless eyes and the disorientation.

Later he walked along the pale markers of the dead and met a snake who answered a question with cold obsession in yellow-slit eyes.

Later still the wind was whistling in his ears and the river was below him when he remembered two pairs of eyes, black and grey, and a promise, so he drew his kunai and resolved to _live_ —

_(Can you see the dream we sought?)_

It ends like this:

Crimson seeping through the air, and he ran, heart trembling in fear, and held small hands in his own. Then he realized that she was missing, that his sister was gone, but he must stay, must stay for the too-fragile bundle in his arms, must only hope, must fear with a dread that defined the blood in his eyes.

And then the red ceased, abruptly, as sound cut off by metal, and he wondered (desperate, there was a promise he told himself)—

When she came to him that night, he simply held her, still and always trembling, and their tragedy swelled with two deaths and a suspicion—

_(Why must we make enemies of our duality?)_

It ends like this:

With glances and muttered apprehensions, with cold eyes and division straining every step taken, he walked as an outsider to the place where he seeded his loyalty. (It was strangling him—the vines had grown too quickly, climbing the tree and taking nutrients till it was a husk.) Eventually he took to the rooftops, to the shadows, to the unseen places that he might not bear the weight of their fear—

_(Whose are the commands, little faithful, you would obey?)_

It ends like this:

Orders clashed and he was caught in the middle, curled up with a slow, agonized scream tearing his throat till it silenced his cries. He watched, mute with the memory of pain, for a little boy with wonder in his eyes, with _admiration_ (but he was wrong to think of him as a hero), and she was holding his hand, a sad smile on her face—

_(For whom will you die; for whom will you kill; for whom will you live?)_

It ends with silence, and he is only watching, a passenger, as his arms lift a bloodied sword. 

It ends with silence, and he tilts her eyes, desperate, _(do not) look at me_.

It ends with silence and an eon.

_(Where is that world you strive for; where are the could-have-beens?)_

He lives an eternity, and she is there with him. 

They dream that his weapons gather rust in a forgotten training ground, that their bodies remain unmarked by their devotions; they dream of tasting the time that passes, of watching their brother never lose his faith; they dream of a peaceful funeral, when they are both old, as their parents seem to smile when they go up in flames.

It is golden and terribly vivid; so concrete that the vision itself could draw blood.

She stands with him (she must be in opposition, _he is [not] a traitor_ ) and his shoulders no longer shield himself from their world. He leans into her, and she embraces him. They sit on the Hokage Monument and she whispers the ending to their story, and they are siblings again.

It ends with his death, a quiet death that is expected and _oh so different_ from the fate he’d planned out as repentance, and he blinks back tears as he opens his eyes to iron and spinning spinning red. (But he is set to peace; he can breathe, perhaps, again.)

He sets her down gently, a facsimile of caring (he made a promise that would break him), and leaves. He does not ever look back, even when his body betrays him and turns—

_(Why does love pierce so deep that he drowns in his own blood?)_

And he was running, again and again, running from gentle smiles and faraway looks, running from and towards peace, running—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary of the last part and the addendum: Kakashi deals with the aftermath of Itachi's genjutsu/mangekyou with repeat images of his father and his former teammates. Tenzo informs him that Itachi has escaped. The addendum describes Itachi's flight and a lot of his formative moments before delving a bit deeper into his mindset and the illusion Luna twisted for him.
> 
> This is the first turning point (I’m sure you all saw this coming). I was playing around with the idea of having Luna take steps to prevent the Massacre, but I don’t think it’s possible at this point. She has too little influence, born too late to stop most of the roots of the hostility, and is busy herself with just existing in the world of shinobi. In addition, Itachi has also tried to shield her from the clan’s plotting and betrayal. 
> 
> I chose (or rather, Luna chose) to give Itachi at least a few years (albeit in the Tsukuyomi) to be happy, because his story is a tragedy (a Greek tragedy, in which the protagonist is neither a villain nor virtuous man, and he knows that he isn’t). I don’t see Itachi as a hero (he murdered his whole clan, including the children and the old—I agree with Itachi, both canon and my own writing of him, that it is an unforgivable crime), but anyone with that much sadness in his heart deserves at least a little peace. Remember this: he was only thirteen (and not the most mentally stable.) He had to make a terrible choice and was manipulated by the people he should have been able to trust. I don’t condone his actions, but he is still a child, prodigy or not, and his actions reflect those in positions of influence over him. I cannot blame him completely, and I cannot not blame him.
> 
> The nine familial exterminations in Ancient China were the most severe form of punishment for capital offenses, most often treason against the Emperor. This is exactly what Itachi carried out. But even in Ancient Asia it was often considered an inhumane act, especially when children were involved (Confucian principles dictated that children should not be held accountable for their guardians’ actions). Because of the grave importance of family in many Asian cultures (again, Confucianism had a role in this) and the responsibility of each member to the family, it literally was a fate worse than death, to know that you had, not only committed a grave sin and would be executed, but also failed your family who would suffer for your actions. And Konoha, being originally an alliance between clans, with none of the reverence for the king and his divine lineage, would have rebelled at such a punishment, the clans rising up as the Uchiha demonstrated that going against the Hokage spelled complete totalitarian rule. Konoha does have its own darkness (being the “kindest” village just means that its horrors are just that much more carefully concealed), but there’s a difference between hidden tortures and public abominations. Those tend to invite dissent, and in a military state that kind of dissent isn’t tenable, thus the need for a scapegoat and loyal executioner: Itachi.
> 
> Sorry for the long author’s note, I just felt that my thought processes needed to be explained. (Also longest chapter yet! Huzzah!)


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